To give you an overall idea of what the movie is like, I’ll put it this way: imagine a bunch of college kids with cameras  and an alcoholic professor with a British accent caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, making their way through the country roads, finding a safe spot to rest in.

I can honestly say this is one of my favorite zombie movies ever. I love the fact that the producer has ripped out a page from The Blair Witch Project scenario (figuratively speaking) and added to his own. By saying that I’m referring to the style in which the movie is shot – as if it was made with hand-held cameras.

Now, I don’t want to give you out any spoilers or anything, but here’s a hint: as the movie gets pass the 1 hour mark, it gets even better (or at least I think so)! They arrive to a huge mansion (or, as in the movie it was called, “fortress“) where really juicy parts start happening. Although, whats interesting is the fact that there’s barely any humor in the movie. Sure, it’s a zombie apocalypse and all of your loved ones are either dead or dying, but nearly all of the zombie/horror movies have a little bit of laughs in them (not referring to Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead). In a way it’s a serious movie and what Debra (the girl who sometimes speaks as the narrator) mentions during the movie makes you wonder (or at least got me). Lines such as:

“Are we worth saving? You tell me.”

“You see, in addition to trying to tell you the truth, I am hoping to scare you so that maybe you’ll wake up. Maybe you won’t make any of the same mistakes that we made.“,

“It’s funny. You spend so much time resenting your parents, separating yourself, building your own life. But as soon as the shit hits the fan, the only place you want to go is home.”

“What gets into our heads when we see something horrible? A horrible accident on the highway. Something keeps us from just driving on. Something holds us. But we don’t stop to help. We stop to look.”

Hey, a movie is just a movie, right? Either way, what Debra says in the movie… seems like the truth to me. Watch the movie, maybe you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Production & shooting

Romero announced the film in August 2006 after signing a deal to write and direct it. Filming began its four-week shoot in Toronto on October 19, 2006.

Despite the low production budget, somewhere around 2 million dollars, director George Romero made extensive use of computer-generated imagery, because it allowed him to shoot the film quickly and add the effects later. Also, the film’s style, as if shot with hand-held cameras, necessitated a shift from his usual method of working, which involves filming multiple camera angles and assembling scenes in the editing room.

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Midnight Madness on September 8, 2007. According to a poll taken by the Toronto Star, it was one of the most anticipated films at the Festival.

Cast

• Michelle Morgan as Debra Moynihan

• Joshua Close as Jason Creed

• Shawn Roberts as Tony Ravello

• Amy Ciupak Lalonde as Tracy Thurman

• Joe Dinicol as Eliot Stone

• Scott Wentworth as Andrew Maxwell

• Philip Riccio as Ridley Wilmott

• Chris Violette as Gordo Thorsen

• Tatiana Maslany as Mary Dexter

The film was principally shot in Bulgaria, with limited shooting in Los Angeles, California. Tyler Bates provided the soundtrack, and screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick has a cameo appearance as an ill-fated police officer.

Comparisons to the original

This film actually bears little resemblance to the original Day of the Dead from 1985. Similarities include the names of several characters, including Dr. Logan, Salazar, Cpt. Rhodes, and Sarah. None of these characters bears any similarity to those of Romero’s original characters other than their names. One character, Bud Crain, is potentially meant to identify with Bub, the trained zombie in Romero’s film. In this new version, Bud is a soldier who becomes a zombie who remains with survivors and aids them in surviving, including a scene where he shoots a gun at one of the main antagonists, just as the zombie Bub does at the conclusion of Romero’s Day.

Another similarity can be found in the new film’s conclusion as the survivors retreat into an underground bunker and missile silo, which is the setting for the original film. The contents of the underground bunker are, however, entirely different from the original.

The film does not follow Romero’s guidelines of what a zombie is at all; instead of a mysterious and unknown force bringing people back from the dead, the ‘zombies’ of this film are humans infected with a virus that makes them attack uninfected humans. When the infection takes control, the individual freezes completely, as the virus fully overwhelms their body. Once changed, the infected inexplicably gain numerous open sores on their faces. Once they are infected, the zombies gain super-human abilities, such as climbing walls, running along the ceiling, and jumping very high. This is very different than Romero’s “slow-moving” zombies and Zack Snyder’s 2004 Dawn of the Dead’s “fast” zombies which can run but at a normal speed for humans. For some reason, contact with fire causes the zombies to disintegrate instantly.

The original Day of the Dead picked up well after the first zombie outbreak; a group of scientists and army personnel believe they might be the only living people left as they have not made contact with any other survivors in weeks. This film begins as the outbreak begins, making it more similar to Night of the Living Dead.

Cast

• Mena Suvari as Sarah Bowman
• Nick Cannon as Salazar
• Michael Welch as Trevor Bowman
• AnnaLynne McCord as Nina
• Stark Sands as Bud Crain
• Matt Rippy as Dr. Logan
• Ian McNeice as D.J. Paul
• Christa Campbell as Mrs. Leitner
• Ving Rhames as Capt. Rhodes

Plot

In 1968, in the Ravenside Military Hospital in a military facility in Pennsylvania, the army loses control of an experiment of a lethal biological weapon that changes the DNA and transforms human beings into zombies. A group of soldiers are sent to the hospital to eliminate the infected staff and interns but private DeLuca steals a test tube with the virus and hides it inside a vacuum flask. He is transformed into a zombie and killed but the vacuum flask falls into the grass.

In the present day, a group of patients in the mental institution Ravenside Memorial Hospital finds the vacuum flask and later when one of them opens the vessel, the culture tube drops on the floor of a bathroom contaminating the group.

Reception

The film has received dominantly negative reviews. One factor stems from the title, as the plot of the film and its depiction of zombies are at odds with those in both the original Day of the Dead and Romero’s Dead series as a whole. Heavy criticism have also been aimed at the film’s acting, special effects, and script.

Production

James Gunn is only partially responsible for the screenplay, despite receiving solo writing credit. After he left the project to concentrate on Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, both Michael Tolkin and Scott Frank were brought in for rewrites. In a commentary track on the Ultimate Edition DVD for the original Dawn, producer Richard P. Rubenstein explained that Tolkin further developed the characters, while Frank provided some of the bigger and upbeat action sequences.

The mall scenes of the film as well as the rooftop scenes were shot in the Thornhill Square Shopping Centre in Thornhill, Ontario and the rest of the scenes were shot in the Aileen-Willowbrook Neighborhood of Thornhill, Ontario. The set for Ana and Louis’s bedroom was constructed in a backroom of the mall. The mall was defunct, which is the reason the production used it; the movie crew completely renovated the structure, and stocked it with fictitious stores after Starbucks Coffee and numerous other corporations refused to let their names be used  (two exceptions to this are Roots and Panasonic). Most of the mall was demolished shortly after the film was shot. The fictitious stores include a coffeeshop called Hallowed Grounds (a lyric from Johnny Cash’s song “The Man Comes Around,” which was used over the opening credits), and an upscale department store called Gaylen Ross (an in-joke reference to one of the stars of the original 1978 movie).

The first half of the film was shot almost entirely in chronological order, while the final sequences on the boat and island were shot much later and at a different location (Universal Studios Hollywood) than the rest of the movie, after preview audiences objected to the sudden ending of the original print.

Cast

• Sarah Polley - Ana Clark
• Ving Rhames - Kenneth Hall
• Jake Weber – Michael
• Michael Kelly - C.J.
• Kevin Zegers - Terry
• Lindy Booth - Nicole
• Mekhi Phifer -  Andre
• Inna Korobkina - Luda
• Ty Burrell - Steve Markus
• Michael Barry - Bart
• Jayne Eastwood - Norma

The film had a limited theatrical release at Mann’s Chinese 6 Theatres on 13 October 2008, one day before being released on DVD. Originally finished in 2007, the film premiered at a number of film festivals throughout 2008 to mostly positive reviews. Notable premieres include the South by Southwest Film Festival and the Atlanta Film Festival.

Cast

• Jared Kusnitz as Jimmy, the film’s chief protagonist. Jimmy is a self-styled class clown without direction in life.
• Greyson Chadwick, as Lindsey. Lindsey is Jimmy’s on-again-off-again girlfriend and Vice-President of the Student Council.
• Chandler Darby, as Steven. Steven is the class geek. He secretly has a crush on Gwen. Is turned into a zombie after Gwen bites him while kissing and is killed when Jimmy blows up the school.
• Carissa Capobianco, as Gwen. Gwen is a popular cheerleader who suddenly finds herself without a date to the prom after her date ate bad spinach. Falls for Steven but is bitten by a zombie, dies turns Steven into a zombie and dies again when Jimmy blows up the school.
• Randy McDowell, as Jules. Jules is President of the Sci-Fi Club. Survives the movie.
• Blair Redford, as Nash Rambler. Leader of a band made out of stoners. Discovers that the dead like his bands music and survives the movie although one of his friends and fellow bandmates is killed.
• Mark Oliver, as Coach Keel. The school’s coach who seems to have some kind of military background. After meeting up with the surviving students he takes command and leads an attack on the school that erdicates the zombies.
• Justin Welborn, as Kyle Grubin. Jimmy’s enemy. He is found by Jimmy hiding behind his truck. He is killed when a zombie bites him in the neck. Turns into a zombie and dies again when he is beaten to death.
• James Jarrett, as Gravedigger. Aware of the events that have been happening. Decides to keep quiet so he can keep his job. Survives the movie and is left to clean up the mess after Jimmy blows up the school.

Plot

The story begins after the Earth’s water supply has been infected by a strange parasite known as Rot Worms. Rot Worm eggs were delivered by rain, and there’s no place on the planet that is free from the Rot Worms. Once hatched, they begin feasting on human flesh, turning their hosts into mindless zombies. The movie follows Fred, an old man with a walker trying to survive

The film cost $13,000 to produce, and cast provided their own costumes. The film was shot 3 days a week for 7 weeks. This enabled the cast and crew to maintain their jobs, most as restaurant servers and bartenders, during the shoot.

The film features a “Lord Of The Flies” metaphoric subtext. Instead of a pig’s head, though, a zombie’s head rules the descent into anarchy from the Parlor parking lot, perched on his ‘throne’ (a toilet stool).

The movie Brain Blockers is a low-budget mad scientist/comedy-horror film about a college professor, Dr. Douglas Newton (Edwin Craig) who develops an experimental drug named Tryptophan (not to be confused with real Tryptophan) that has the unfortunate side effect of turning his students into blood thirsty zombie-like creatures leading them to eventually explode. It’s up to a couple of grad students Jenny Wayne (Timmi Cragg) and Joe Larsen (Matt Shevin), along with the local newspaper reporter Ray Elsworth (Ned Liebl) to uncover Dr. Newton’s dark secret and thwart his diabolical plans before time runs out.

Cast

• Timmi Cragg as Jenny Wayne
• Matt Shevin as Joe Larsen
• Edwin Craig as Dr. Douglas Newton
• Ned Liebl as Ray Elseworth
• Crystal Day as Becky
• Diora Baird as Suzi Klein
• Timothy L. Arnold as Tommy Martin
• Allison Evans as Emma Greenberg
• John W. Allen as John Cotton
• Jana Thompson as Shannon Braithwaite
• Jon Brooks as Billy Hobson

Notably, the movie was the first non-pornographic movie for some years to be banned by the Irish Film Classification Office (IFCO), due to a depiction of suicide. While the scene was not cut from the movie, the IFCO appeals board overturned the ban, issuing a 15A rating.

Cast

• Samantha Mumba – Jessica
• David Leon – Nathan
• Laurence Kinlan – Henry
• Tadhg Murphy – Diggs
• Sara James – Cheryl
• Mark Huberman – Samson
• Paul Reid – Shane

Cast

• Jeffrey Combs - Dr. Herbert West
• Jason Barry - Dr. Howard Phillips
• Simón Andreu - Warden Brando
• Santiago Segura - Speedball
• Elsa Pataky -  Laura Olney
• Lolo Herrero - Sergeant Moncho
• Enrique – Arce Cabrera
• Bárbara Elorrieta - Emily Phillips