Oh my dear Lord in Heaven...

What is more unbelievable- the fact that this travesty of a so-called "film" actually exists, or that much of the cast and crew actually assembled to record a commentary for it after the fact and talk about the resulting septic tank of a "film" as if it actually has something of worth to offer? Could these people actually be that desperate for attention??!?!???

People, think about this- the WRITER OF THIS FILM ACTUALLY HAS A CAREER, AND LIKELY MAKES MORE MONEY IN A YEAR THAN MOST OF US MAKE EVERY TEN YEARS. WHAT THE F*CK IS WRONG WITH THIS WORLD???!!?!?!?!?!?!!????

Vincent

I felt the exact same way about the film and 3 commentaries for the TEXAS CHAINSAW remake.

As for DAY, I've got it coming from Netflix. I just saw Heinzman's FLESHEATER on Friday so I don't know if DAY will be an improvement or not.

I actually sort of enjoyed the flick.

Sure, I went into it expecting a complete abomination, so lowered expectations helped. I also just went with it as just another zombie film, rather than a remake of Romero's entry.

As such, I found it entertaining, although a little silly. The thing is called Day of the Dead, but aside for the set-up and coda, the entire flick takes place at night. And since it's directed by Steve Miner, it's not much of a surprise that the tone feels more like a stalk-n-slash film then a zombie film. Lots of POV camera work even when there's no POV being represented.

But I can see where there's fuel for the loathing. The vegetarian zombie subplot was completely boneheaded, the zombies going up in pixie dust when exposed to fire unnecessary, and Miner never settles on an internal logic when it comes to how the zombies behave. Some shamble, some run and one skitters up a wall and across the ceiling.

Although I got a kick out of the latter. If they all behaved like that it might have worked better for the overall film.

I also liked Suvari in this, sort of a Jessica Lynch vibe. Despite the times her Corporal character seemed to out-rank Rhames' Captain Rhodes.

But for what it was, I enjoyed it a lot more than the last Resident Evil entry. If I saw House of the Dead at the multiplex, there's no reason this should have went D2DVD.

I thought the TCM remake wasn't too bad, until they made the terrible mistake in the third act of dropping the classic dinner scene and replacing it with a never-ending chase of epically tedious length.

I haven't seen Day (08) yet.

I was surprised to see this on the store shelf yesterday. Did it get a theatrical release? I knew it was coming and had been keeping an eye out. The back cover made it sound more like a loose remake. Oh well.

So, so, so, so bad. But then again I should've known when I saw among the credited producers one or two from NuImage (and before that The Cannon Group). I hate fast zombies and the ones that could run up the walls and along the ceilings (cue falling CGI tiles) and explode in fire were really stupid. Rhodes barely made an impression and bad guy was rather thinly drawn (not even that slimy). The radio guy was just annoying. The main characters were all uninteresting (who cares about the bickering siblings).

Maybe its just me, but why the hell don't police/soldiers/etc try turning on the lights when they enter a dark house?.

I don't mind fast zombies. Which is convenient for me, because the shamblers aren't gonna get much more play. But...

Like I said earlier, if Miner had maintained an internal logic and had all the zombies skitter about like that the film might have worked better. Of course, that would have required a supernatural explanation for the outbreak rather than a biological. Maybe taken a page from the Demons mythos rather than the Romero template. Or from Brian Keane's The Rising and had the bodies of the dead repossessed by some ancient evil. Whatever.

In an odd way, I found the flick worked as a good negative example of why my own zombie script (that I thought was finished last year) sort of runs out of steam in the third act. The air duct scene here shows that the minute you throw your refugees in an air duct, the tension deflates.

The problem is, the air duct factor is part and parcel of zombie apocalypse handbook for anyone that walks into a strange building and mentally graphs the escape routes. The counter-problem is that for narrative, it's a cop-out to get your characters from Point A to C on the path of least resistance.

Also, I'm intrigued when a zombie film touches on post-resurrection free will, but here they really squander the opportunity. I like the concept that trapped in the rotting flesh, some vestige of the former owner of the vehicle remains. That takes the horror to a new level (admittedly touched on in Return of the Living Dead). But a vegetarian that can't bring himself to eat human flesh? Weak. What happens with Buddhists when they come back?

They go to the mall, d'uh.

I thought that was the Hare Krishnas turf...

I actually prefer this to the Dawn Of the Dead remake - which, by the way, is a very left-handed compliment, but still... I think the fact that after a little bit of pointless set-up, Day was almost constant action, which didn't leave you so much time to sit with the terrible characters and dialogue, unlike Dawn which really trapped you with them. Here, the writing and comic relief were just as terrible (and the gaps of logic just as large and inconsistent); but you had no extended scenes of awful character interaction... they were always runnning into or away from one action set-piece after another.

Just as a general statement, I'm getting a little sick of under-cranking action sequences in a lame attempt to make them scary/exciting though.