Adam’s Crawl Space: Day of the Dead (2008) with Bonus Mini-Reviews!

Feb 232010

day_of_the_dead_2008_movie_image__2_ (1) Aside from a few of the character names and an insulting nod to zombie test subject Bub, nothing else from the original is carried over to the remake of Day of the Dead by director Steve Miner. No bunker, no bickering, and most importantly there was neither care given nor pride taken in the story. The plot is essentially Outbreak with zombies, it’s wholly unoriginal, and a by the numbers, absolutely stupid zombie movie. Stupid is an oft overused and a very simple word to describe something that isn’t very intelligent, but it’s really almost all this movie deserves. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

We begin in the small town of Stupid, Colorado in the United States with a stupid military imposing quarantine. A mysterious outbreak of some nasty type of flu has recently swept through the town, causing a lot of bloody noses and a fairly irritating hacking cough. Soon enough though, the flu turns everyone into flesh eating zombies and well, you know how this shit always plays out. Corporal Sarah Stupid, played elegantly by American Beauty’s own Mena Suvari, is inexplicably the second in command of the quarantine to Captain Ving Rhames. This is the first of many outright ridiculous military discrepancies, the funniest being how large her corporal insignia is on her uniform collar and hat. You know those books with the large print for old people? It’s kinda like that. Yes, I’m making fun of legally blind senior citizens. They won’t know, the print isn’t large enough on the Breach.

Corporal Stupid’s brother, Trevor Stupid, is busy trying to get laid in the beginning of the flick. His mom is sick, and oh donkeyballs, fuck this shit. After the first half hour gets out of the way, they all band together, including two soldiers Salazar and Bud Crain, Trevor’s bug-eyed girlfriend Nina, and a lot of automatic weaponry. After loads of uninspired zombie kills, they find out where the outbreak started, who started it, escape minus a couple asshole characters, and the movie’s done. It’s so ordinary and mundane that it’s actually painful to sit through; there is no way that I can ever recommend this movie to anybody.

Running zombies are something that I’ve just gotten used to. I don’t necessarily like the style of a running zombie, but it’s all that gets put on film anymore so I don’t fight it. However, if you’re going to have a running zombie, at least follow the model of 28 Days Later or the Dawn of the Dead remake and make it look scary and cool. What they tried to do with the running zombies in this remake was admirable, which was have them look like they’re trying to run with obvious handicaps like broken legs. Unfortunately they ended up looking like they were running with large objects inserted into their asses. It’s as if they are running at you screaming “Get it out!! Get it out!!” They can also briefly crawl on the ceilings and walls, another new zombie trait that makes zero sense and looks completely and utterly fucking stupid. Also new to the zombie Wikipedia page would be that setting them on fire is a sure way to explode the head. I’m not sure what fire has to do with zombie heads blowing apart like a Gallagher melon, but it at least gave me a chuckle or two when I saw it happen. That and a legless Ving Rhames pulling out his own eyeball and eating it were easily the most entertaining things in this excruciating mound of suck.

There are also soldier zombies that freely use guns in one scene, which outside of the Romero universe doesn’t really add up. Over the course of Romero’s films he showed the gradual evolution of the zombie, and in 1 hour and 20 minutes this ugly mess depicts them evolving immediately, which brings me to the dumbest callback to the original: The new Bub. Bub, from Day of the Dead was a product of test after test by Dr. Logan. Bub was evolved, Bub was smart and Bub was completely endearing…and all as a zombie. This movie’s version of Bub, is what soldier Bud Crain has turned into after being bitten. He’s still responsive to human commands, and the way they explain him not trying to eat anyone is, wait for it, he’s a VEGETARIAN. Holy. Shit. My fat fingers do not possess the dexterity or the stamina to crank out a nerd rant that is acceptable in length to tell you just how much that made me want to send director Steve Miner to hell. Go die somewhere, Steve Miner.

The gore level is decent, but all of it is CGI. It’s horribly animated and all of the kills have been seen before. If you’ve never seen a zombie movie before, please, please do not let this be your first one. Go watch Romero’s Dead trilogy. Oh, and fuck you ,Ving Rhames. Jerk.

This movie is ocular rape, the end.

Surrogates (2009) mini-review:

Bruce Willis is still on his film vacation. AVOID ABORT JESUS GOD IN HEAVEN RUN AWAY.

Cabin Fever 2 (2009) minier-review:

Oozing pus penis.

The Stepfather (2009) miniest-review:

Piss.