Dark Arms: Beast Buster 1999 is an action role-playing game released by SNK for the Neo-Geo Pocket Color in 1999. It is a spin-off follow-up to the SNK arcade shooter Beast Busters . The game was later re-released as part of Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1 in 2021.
128-419: Dark Arms features a girl, Meghan Loughlin, whose job is to defeat and contain an outbreak of demons and act as a mediator between this world and the next. The player can collect the spirits of the various demons and zombies they fight in the game with a gun known as "The Catcher". The player-character can then use captured spirits to 'feed' their weapons and evolve them into more powerful forms. For example,
256-505: A first-person video-game perspective at the beginning of the film to be praiseworthy, more so than those of the video game films Resident Evil (2002) and House of the Dead (2003). The lack of dark humor of the original was a source of criticism, although the scene in which survivors shoot zombified celebrity look-alikes with a sniper rifle was considered by most to be funny, among other jokes; The Hollywood Reporter cited it as some of
384-462: A 2004 action horror film directed by Zack Snyder in his feature directorial debut, with a screenplay by James Gunn . A remake of George A. Romero 's 1978 film of the same name , it stars an ensemble cast that includes Sarah Polley , Jake Weber , Ving Rhames , and Mekhi Phifer , with Scott Reiniger , Tom Savini , and Ken Foree from the original film appearing in cameos. Set in Milwaukee ,
512-504: A Zombie (1943) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). Frankenstein by Mary Shelley , while not a zombie novel per se , foreshadows many 20th century ideas about zombies in that the resurrection of the dead is portrayed as a scientific process rather than a mystical one and that the resurrected dead are degraded and more violent than their living selves. Frankenstein , published in 1818, has its roots in European folklore, whose tales of
640-463: A dead person can be zombified by a small child. It is said that the spell can be broken by a powerful enough sangoma . It is also believed in some areas of South Africa that witches can zombify a person by killing and possessing the victim's body to force it into slave labor. After rail lines were built to transport migrant workers, stories emerged about "witch trains". These trains appeared ordinary, but were staffed by zombified workers controlled by
768-561: A delivery truck carrying survivors enters the lot, pursued by zombies. C.J. and Bart want to turn them away but are overruled and disarmed. The newcomers include Norma, Steve, Tucker, Monica, Glen, Frank and his daughter Nicole. Another woman is too ill to walk; she is wheeled inside, only to die and reanimate. After she is killed, the group determines the disease is passed by bites. Frank, who has been bitten, elects to be isolated. When he dies and turns, Kenneth shoots him. Andre leaves to see Luda, who has hidden her scratch. Kenneth and Andy start
896-495: A friendship, communicating with messages written on whiteboards; romance also buds between Ana and Michael, and Nicole and Terry. When the power goes out, C.J., Bart, Michael and Kenneth go to the parking garage to activate the emergency generator; they find a friendly dog named Chips, signifying a breach. Zombies attack and kill Bart, forcing the others to douse the zombies in gas and set them ablaze. Meanwhile, Luda — tied up by Andre — dies giving birth and reanimates as Norma checks on
1024-468: A girl and his love for human flesh, and Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) (released as Cemetery Man in the U.S.). In 1980s Hong Kong cinema , the Chinese jiangshi , a zombie-like creature dating back to Qing dynasty era jiangshi fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries, were featured in a wave of jiangshi films , popularised by Mr. Vampire (1985). Hong Kong jiangshi films were popular in
1152-420: A group coming together to work as a community who wouldn't otherwise work together. So there is that foundation of love, that basic message, within even Dawn of the Dead ... Zack Snyder chose to direct the remake as his first feature film because it gave the television commercial director "a reason to care about every shot". Not wanting his version inevitably compared to George A. Romero 's, he concurred with
1280-509: A lot of new fans". Newman and Abraham bought the rights to Dawn of the Dead from its producer and rights holder Richard P. Rubinstein , who was reluctant at first as he was "concerned that somewhere along the way a studio would sanitize Newman's vision for producing a version with 'attitude'", but that it was "Marc Abraham's long track record in keeping the creative integrity of the studio distributed films he has produced intact that gave me reason to say 'yes'". Newman hired James Gunn to write
1408-419: A modest success, nearly outstripping Romero's Day of the Dead for box office returns. After the mid-1980s, the subgenre was mostly relegated to the underground. Notable entries include director Peter Jackson 's ultra-gory film Braindead (1992) (released as Dead Alive in the U.S.), Bob Balaban 's comic 1993 film My Boyfriend's Back , where a self-aware high-school boy returns to profess his love for
SECTION 10
#17328588201001536-448: A nearby mall and are attacked by a zombified security guard, who scratches Luda. Three living guards — C.J., Bart, and Terry — force them to surrender their weapons in exchange for refuge. Together they secure the mall. On the roof, they see another survivor, Andy, stranded in his gun store across the zombie-infested parking lot. The group notices a military helicopter and attempts to get the pilot's attention, but to no avail. The next day,
1664-506: A powerful and frequently fatal neurotoxin found in the flesh of the pufferfish (family Tetraodontidae). The second powder consists of deliriant drugs such as datura . Together these powders were said to induce a deathlike state, in which the will of the victim would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse , who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. The most ethically questioned and least scientifically explored ingredient of
1792-433: A scheduled date night, they miss several emergency news bulletins . The next morning, a zombified neighborhood girl, Vivian, enters their bedroom and kills Luis, who immediately reanimates and attacks Ana. She flees the chaotic neighborhood in her car, crashes, and passes out. Upon awakening, Ana joins police sergeant Kenneth Hall, electronics salesman Michael, petty criminal Andre and his pregnant wife Luda. They break into
1920-436: A sentiment also shared by IGN . Lisa Schwarzbaum praised Snyder's direction in "a killer feature debut", while Roger Ebert said in a positive review that anyone paying to see it is guaranteed to get their money's worth. Abundant praise was given to the film's opening sequence, which an otherwise negative review from The Hollywood Reporter called "pulse-poundingly good". Gingold found Snyder's camerawork utilizing
2048-401: A similar situation. The script was given uncredited rewrites by Michael Tolkin and Scott Frank ; co-producer Richard P. Rubinstein said Tolkin further developed the characters while Frank provided some of the bigger, upbeat action scenes. Gunn revealed he received internet backlash over the film due to his past screenwriting credit on Scooby-Doo (2002), believing him to be unqualified for
2176-427: A slave after death, as a zombie. A zombie could also be saved by feeding them salt . English professor Amy Wilentz has written that the modern concept of Zombies was strongly influenced by Haitian slavery . Slave drivers on the plantations, who were usually slaves themselves and sometimes voodoo priests, used the fear of zombification to discourage slaves from committing suicide. While most scholars have associated
2304-707: A state of catatonia . Roland Littlewood , professor of anthropology and psychiatry, published a study supporting a social explanation of the zombie phenomenon in the medical journal The Lancet in 1997. The social explanation sees observed cases of people identified as zombies as a culture-bound syndrome , with a particular cultural form of adoption practiced in Haiti that unites the homeless and mentally ill with grieving families who see them as their "returned" lost loved ones, as Littlewood summarizes his findings in an article in Times Higher Education : I came to
2432-422: A state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years. Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis — particularly of the muscles of the diaphragm — unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to psychologist Terence Hines , the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis' assessment of
2560-514: A suitable upscale mall location for the film, production designer Andrew Neskoromny looked for existing malls that were scheduled for demolition. His search yielded no results until he found the now-defunct Thornhill Square shopping mall in Toronto , Ontario, Canada, which measured approximately 45,000 square feet (1.0 acre). Dubbed the "Crossroads Mall", the crew completely redid the mall over an eight-week period, adding an expensive water feature near
2688-522: A total of 3,000 makeups completed when filming ended on September 6, 2003. The visual effects for the film were provided by Canadian VFX studio Mr. X Inc., with its president Dennis Berardi serving as the film's co- VFX supervisor . The production shot scenes for which Snyder wanted as many as 4,000 live-action zombies, which Berardi created rather as a combination of practical zombies and CG zombies which he built as 3D models with Autodesk Maya . One such scene involved tens of thousands of zombies at
SECTION 20
#17328588201002816-585: A two-disc collector's edition Blu-ray of Dawn of the Dead , which contains the film's theatrical version and the director's cut. The Blu-ray, which is said to have been "derived from the digital intermediate archival negative ", contains bonus features found in previous releases in addition to new and exclusive ones featuring interviews with actors Ty Burrell and Jake Weber , screenwriter James Gunn , and makeup effects artists David LeRoy Anderson and Heather Langenkamp . A 4K Ultra HD collector's edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory with extras ported over from
2944-511: A vampire story, had a great impact on the zombie genre by way of George A. Romero . The novel and its 1964 film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth , which concern a lone human survivor waging war against a world of vampires, would by Romero's own admission greatly influence his 1968 low-budget film Night of the Living Dead , a work that was more influential on the concept of zombies than any literary or cinematic work before it. The monsters in
3072-517: A wave of low-budget Asian zombie films such as the zombie comedy Bio Zombie (1998) and action film Versus (2000), and then a new wave of popular Western zombie films in the early 2000s, the Resident Evil and House of the Dead films, the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake , and the British zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004). The " zombie apocalypse " concept, in which the civilized world
3200-471: A witch. The trains would abduct a person boarding at night, and the person would then either be zombified or beaten and thrown from the train a distance away from the original location. Several decades after Hurston's work, Wade Davis , a Harvard ethnobotanist , presented a pharmacological case for zombies in a 1983 article in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology , and later in two popular books: The Serpent and
3328-447: A zombie astral to enhance his spiritual power. A zombie astral can also be sealed inside a specially decorated bottle by a bokor and sold to a client to bring luck, healing, or business success. It is believed that God eventually will reclaim the zombie's soul, so the zombie is a temporary spiritual entity. The two types of zombie reflect soul dualism , a belief of Bakongo religion and Haitian voodoo . Each type of legendary zombie
3456-483: A zombie, since they "knew" that they were dead and had no other role to play in the Haitian society. Societal reinforcement of the belief was hypothesized by Davis to confirm for the zombie individual the zombie state, and such individuals were known to hang around in graveyards, exhibiting attitudes of low affect . Davis's claim has been criticized, particularly the suggestion that Haitian witch doctors can keep "zombies" in
3584-402: Is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse . In modern popular culture, zombies are most commonly found in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore , in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like Vodou . Modern media depictions of the reanimation of
3712-475: Is an animated corpse raised by magical means, such as witchcraft . The English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey , in the form of "zombi", actually referring to the Afro-Brazilian rebel leader named Zumbi and the etymology of his name in "nzambi". The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin of the word as Central African and compares it to
3840-502: Is attacked by a swarm of zombies before the camcorder drops. Additional members of the cast include stuntman Ermes Blarasin as the bloated woman, Natalie Brown as a CDC reporter, and dog actor Blu as Nicole's adopted pet dog Chips. Director Zack Snyder cameos as a soldier battling zombies at the United States Capitol during the film's title sequence , as do Scott Reiniger , Tom Savini , and Ken Foree (who were in
3968-651: Is brought low by a global zombie infestation, has since become a staple of modern zombie media, seen in such media as The Walking Dead franchise . The late 2000s and 2010s saw the humanization and romanticization of the zombie archetype , with the zombies increasingly portrayed as friends and love interests for humans. Notable examples of the latter include movies Warm Bodies and Zombies , novels American Gods by Neil Gaiman , Generation Dead by Daniel Waters, and Bone Song by John Meaney , animated movie Corpse Bride , TV series iZombie and Santa Clarita Diet , manga series Sankarea: Undying Love , and
Dark Arms: Beast Buster 1999 - Misplaced Pages Continue
4096-485: Is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Vodou in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony." A Central African origin for the Haitian zombie has been postulated based on two etymologies in the Kongo language , nzambi ("god") and zumbi ("fetish"). This root helps form the names of several deities, including
4224-534: Is therefore missing one half of its soul (the flesh or the spirit). The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans and their subsequent experiences in the New World. It was thought that the voodoo deity Baron Samedi would gather them from their grave to bring them to a heavenly afterlife in Africa (" Guinea "), unless they had offended him in some way, in which case they would be forever
4352-469: The Chicago Sun-Times chided theater owners and parents who allowed children access to the film. "I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them", complained Ebert, "They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else." According to Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately: The kids in the audience were stunned. There
4480-636: The Epic of Gilgamesh . One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was The Magic Island (1929) by W. B. Seabrook . This is the sensationalized account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. Time commented that the book "introduced 'zombi' into U.S. speech". Zombies have a complex literary heritage, with antecedents ranging from Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft to Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein drawing on European folklore of
4608-524: The BBC , who also credited the actor with "bringing a redoubtable decency and charisma to a potentially bland part, like the young Roy Scheider in Jaws ". On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 76% of 195 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "A kinetic, violent and surprisingly worthy remake of George Romero's horror classic that pays homage to
4736-621: The English-speaking Caribbean , considered to be of the same etymology; in the French West Indies also, local "zombies" are recognized, but these are of a more general spirit nature. The idea of physical zombie-like creatures is present in some South African cultures, where they are called xidachane in Sotho / Tsonga and maduxwane in Venda . In some communities, it is believed that
4864-417: The Kongo words " nzambi " (god) and " zumbi " (fetish). A Kimbundu -to-Portuguese dictionary from 1903 defines the related word nzumbi as soul, while a later Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary defines it as being a "spirit that is supposed to wander the earth to torment the living". How the creatures in contemporary zombie films came to be called "zombies" is not fully clear. The film Night of
4992-476: The United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), when a number of case histories of purported "zombies" began to emerge. The first popular book covering the topic was William Seabrook 's The Magic Island (1929). Seabrooke cited Article 246 of the Haitian criminal code , which was passed in 1864, asserting that it was an official recognition of zombies. This passage was later used in promotional materials for
5120-453: The 1920s and early 1930s, Lovecraft wrote several novellae that explored the undead theme. " Cool Air ", " In the Vault " and " The Outsider " all deal with the undead, but Lovecraft's " Herbert West–Reanimator " (1921) "helped define zombies in popular culture". This series of short stories featured Herbert West , a mad scientist , who attempts to revive human corpses, with mixed results. Notably,
5248-445: The 1932 film White Zombie . Also shall be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made by any person of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the administering of such substances, the person has been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows. In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered
Dark Arms: Beast Buster 1999 - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-501: The Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), and The Fly (1986) as influences on the remake, considering these to be "amazing updates" as well as "great movies that add to rather than diminish the original films". By way of respect to Romero's film, the producers cast the original's Tom Savini , Scott Reiniger , and Ken Foree in cameos; and incorporated visual references to Gaylen Ross and James A. Baffico . In writing
5504-512: The Christ in its United States opening weekend, with an audience base comprising largely young males and estimated gross of $ 22 million. In the U.S. and Canada, the film was released alongside Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Taking Lives , on March 19, 2004. Dawn of the Dead ended up performing above projections, debuting to $ 27.3 million in its U.S. opening weekend and claiming
5632-610: The DVD and Blu-ray include Snyder and co-producer Eric Newman 's audio commentary ; the featurettes Attack of the Living Dead , Raising the Dead , Drawing the Dead , Splitting Headaches , Surviving the Dawn , and Special Report: Zombie Invasion ; the short film The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed ; deleted scenes with optional commentary by Snyder and Newman; and the film's theatrical trailer . On Halloween of 2017, Shout! Factory 's horror sub-label Scream Factory released
5760-489: The Dead (1978) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985)—the latter of which introduced the concept of zombies that eat brains—as well as Michael Jackson 's music video Thriller (1983), the genre waned for some years. The mid-1990s saw the introduction of Resident Evil and The House of the Dead , two break-out successes of video games featuring zombie enemies which would later go on to become highly influential and well-known. These games were initially followed by
5888-607: The Dead (1978), including once in dialog. According to Romero, film critics were influential in associating the term "zombie" to his creatures, and especially the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma . He eventually accepted this linkage, even though he remained convinced at the time that "zombies" corresponded to the undead slaves of Haitian voodoo as depicted in White Zombie with Bela Lugosi . Zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead persons physically revived by
6016-525: The Dead films and the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. These films also adopted an action approach to the zombie concept, which was also influenced by the Resident Evil and House of the Dead video games. Films featuring zombies have been a part of cinema since the 1930s. White Zombie (directed by Victor Halperin in 1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (directed by Jacques Tourneur ; 1943) were early examples. With George A. Romero 's Night of
6144-401: The Dead . The success of these two 1996 zombie games inspired a wave of Asian zombie films. From the late 1990s, zombies experienced a renaissance in low-budget Asian cinema , with a sudden spate of dissimilar entries, including Bio Zombie (1998), Wild Zero (1999), Junk (1999), Versus (2000) and Stacy (2001). Dawn of the Dead (2004 film) Dawn of the Dead is
6272-547: The Far East from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Prior to the 1990s, there were not many Japanese films related to what may be considered in the West as a zombie film. Early films such as The Discarnates (1988) feature little gore and no cannibalism, but it is about the dead returning to life looking for love rather than a story of apocalyptic destruction. One of the earliest Japanese zombie films with considerable gore and violence
6400-464: The Haitian zombie with African cultures, a connection has also been suggested to the island's indigenous Taíno people , partly based on an early account of native shamanist practices written by Ramón Pané [ es ] , a monk of the Hieronymite religious order and companion of Christopher Columbus . The Haitian zombie phenomenon first attracted widespread international attention during
6528-649: The Handgun evolves into the Sub Shotgun, which can evolve further into the Shotgun. Dark Arms: Beast Buster received mixed reception from critics since its release. In 2014, HobbyConsolas ' s Álvaro Alonso identified Dark Arms: Beast Buster as one of the twenty best games for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Zombie A zombie ( Haitian French : zombi ; Haitian Creole : zonbi ; Kikongo : zumbi )
SECTION 50
#17328588201006656-618: The Kongo creator deity Nzambi Mpungu and the Louisiana serpent deity Li Grand Zombi (a local version of the Haitian Damballa ), but it is in fact a generic word for a divine spirit. The common African conception of beings under these names is more similar to the incorporeal "zombie astral", as in the Kongo Nkisi spirits. A related, but also often incorporeal, undead being is the jumbee of
6784-412: The Living Dead (1968) made no spoken reference to its undead antagonists as "zombies", describing them instead as " ghouls " (though ghouls, which derive from Arabic folklore, are demons, not undead). Although George A. Romero used the term "ghoul" in his original scripts, in later interviews he used the term "zombie". The word "zombie" is used exclusively by Romero in his script for his sequel Dawn of
6912-403: The Living Dead (1968), the zombie trope began to be increasingly linked to consumerism and consumer culture. Today, zombie films are released with such regularity (at least 50 films were released in 2014 alone) that they constitute a separate subgenre of horror film. Voodoo-related zombie themes have also appeared in espionage or adventure-themed works outside the horror genre. For example,
7040-456: The Living Dead began the shift away from Haitian dark magic, though did not give scientific explanations for zombie origins. A more decisive shift towards scientific themes came with the Resident Evil video game series in the late 1990s, which gave more realistic scientific explanations for zombie origins while drawing on modern science and technology, such as biological weaponry , genetic manipulation , and parasitic symbiosis . This became
7168-508: The Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being introduced into the bloodstream (usually through a wound). The first, French: coup de poudre ("powder strike"), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX),
7296-511: The Richard Cheese version in favor of the Disturbed version, but he managed to convince them that the former was appropriate for the scene. Snyder also stated his rationale behind the decision to play " People Who Died " by The Jim Carroll Band at the end of the film: "I really love that [opening chords of 'People Who Died'] DANG! DANG! DANG, DANG, DANG! I thought that it was cool as a way to end
7424-477: The Toronto set and set up their makeup effects lab next to the mall. To depict a heightened realistic look to the zombies, Anderson researched on the appearance of decay following human death , looking through several medical books, war footages, and crime scene photographs showing graphic images of trauma victims; he broke down the look of decomposition into three stages: The first stage looks like someone who
7552-434: The U.S. first" in order to avoid this conflict. Dawn of the Dead was screened out of competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival . Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released Dawn of the Dead on DVD , Blu-ray , and digital with director Zack Snyder's unrated director's cut of the film: he described this version as longer, gorier, and more character-driven than the theatrical one. Bonus features found on
7680-475: The United States and Canada and $ 43.3 million in other territories. The release of Dawn of the Dead in the U.S. nearly coincided with that of Shaun of the Dead , another zombie film distributed by Universal Pictures . In a February 2004 Variety report, a spokesman at Universal revealed that the studio had greenlit Shaun of the Dead "with the condition that Dawn of the Dead would be released here in
7808-591: The Zombies (1966). Romero was also inspired by Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954), along with its film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth (1964). The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to George A. Romero 's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead . In his films, Romero "bred the zombie with the vampire, and what he got was the hybrid vigour of a ghoulish plague monster". This entailed an apocalyptic vision of monsters that have come to be known as Romero zombies . Roger Ebert of
SECTION 60
#17328588201007936-421: The act of necromancy of a bokor , a sorcerer or witch. The bokor is opposed by the houngan (priest) and the mambo (priestess) of the formal voodoo religion. A zombie remains under the control of the bokor as a personal slave, having no will of its own. The Haitian tradition also includes an incorporeal type of zombie, the "zombie astral ", which is a part of the human soul . A bokor can capture
8064-490: The back of the actor's head to be detonated. Concerned about the risk thereof, Anderson developed an alternative method in which his team would attach wires to the scalps loaded with blood packs and yank them with a remote-controlled "air ratchet system", lending a similar gruesome effect as with the squibs sans potential harm. Filming began on June 9, 2003, on location in various parts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hundreds of zombie extras had to be constantly available for
8192-478: The case of a woman who appeared in a village. A family claimed that she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. The woman was examined by a doctor; X-rays indicated that she did not have a leg fracture that Felix-Mentor was known to have had. Hurston pursued rumors that affected persons were given a powerful psychoactive drug , but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote: "What
8320-421: The characters show a lack of common sense , "it's inevitable that most of them end up as one-dimensional throw-aways whose sole purpose is to increase the body count " and that "not many people go to a horror film looking for character development and drama". He and Ebert found the subplots of Kenneth and Andre to be "touching", with Berardinelli stating that these were "handled with a deft hand". Although Ebert
8448-412: The concept of running zombies, which he said was his "fresh, new way" of giving it a sense of verisimilitude and rendering zombies as if they were real threats, especially when they attack in hordes. Snyder maintained Gunn's decision not to reveal the origin of the zombie outbreak, believing it was "obvious that in this fallen society , you wouldn't know where the whole plague started". In searching for
8576-505: The conclusion that although it is unlikely that there is a single explanation for all cases where zombies are recognised by locals in Haiti, the mistaken identification of a wandering mentally ill stranger by bereaved relatives is the most likely explanation in many cases. People with a chronic schizophrenic illness, brain damage or learning disability are not uncommon in rural Haiti, and they would be particularly likely to be identified as zombies. Pulliam and Fonseca (2014) and Walz (2006) trace
8704-439: The couple. When Norma kills the zombified Luda, Andre snaps; they exchange gunfire and both are killed. The others arrive to find a zombie infant, which they kill immediately. The group plans to get to the local marina, find Steve's yacht and travel to an island on Lake Michigan . They reinforce two shuttle buses from the parking garage for their escape. To rescue Andy, the group straps supplies onto Chips's body and lower him into
8832-417: The dead often do not involve magic but rather science fictional methods such as fungi , radiation , gases , diseases , plants , bacteria , viruses , etc. The English word "zombie" was first recorded in 1819 in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey , in the form of "zombi". Dictionaries trace the word's origin to African languages, relating to words connected to gods, ghosts and souls. One of
8960-524: The director on 300 (2006), Watchmen (2009), and Sucker Punch (2011). In a 2023 interview with Total Film , Snyder revealed he had lobbied for the inclusion of the Richard Cheese cover of " Down with the Sickness ", originally sung by the heavy metal band Disturbed , which plays in a montage where the characters relieve boredom in the mall. According to Snyder, the studio originally declined
9088-536: The early 1950s EC Comics , which George A. Romero would later claim as an influence. The comics, including Tales from the Crypt , The Vault of Horror and Weird Science , featured avenging undead in the Gothic tradition quite regularly, including adaptations of Lovecraft's stories, which included "In the Vault", "Cool Air" and "Herbert West–Reanimator". Richard Matheson 's 1954 novel I Am Legend , although classified as
9216-423: The entire shoot. To handle the volume of willing extras, Anderson and his team built a large "factory" where painted extras would stay put until they are spoken for by either the main or second unit film crew. They built various makeup rooms for the artists to work in: one consisted of camper trailers where they would apply detailed prosthetic makeups to extras playing "hero zombies", a special type of zombie; and
9344-399: The entrance, 14 stores, parking structures, and warehouse areas. Since Snyder wanted the stores palpable in terms of design and stood not merely as storefronts , Neskoromny's team accordingly built them as actual retail stores complete with merchandise. These stores were given fake names, since only two major retail brands agreed to be featured in the film. The special makeup effects for
9472-434: The face of all that and some of the people are redeemed and end up becoming good people and some of them are not redeemed and they end up, you know, not redeemed. And that's what kind of drove me throughout the story, was it was a story about redemption. I also think that there's a lot about how people survive and what people turn to in the face of such tragedy. The tragedy in this case being flesh-eating zombies. And really it's
9600-487: The fantastic special effects makeup, the brief flirtation with found footage , and the reverence for its source text while introducing something new makes 2004's Dawn of the Dead one of the best remakes on the market. Likewise, Dawn of the Dead has appeared on several lists of the top zombie films, including number 3 by Rolling Stone (2012), number 12 by Empire (2020), by Collider (2021), number 17 by IndieWire (2022), and by Variety (2023); as well as
9728-434: The film after he was recommended to it by its music supervisor , G. Marq Roswell , who learned he made little money from his work on Mario Van Peebles 's film Baadasssss! (2003), on which Roswell also served as music supervisor. The studio was not convinced with hiring Bates because they felt he was not an established composer at the time, but director Zack Snyder insisted on him, and he was ultimately hired. In scoring
9856-472: The film and its sequels, such as Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985), as well as the many zombie films it inspired, such as The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and Zombi 2 (1979), are usually hungry for human flesh, although Return of the Living Dead introduced the popular concept of zombies eating human brains. There has been an evolution in the zombie archetype from supernatural to scientific themes. I Am Legend and Night of
9984-551: The film as a "stylish, gore-drenched shoot-em-up", and Dargis attributed its appeal not to the bloody violence but to "the filmmakers' commitment to genre fundamentals". Writing in a positive review, internet-based critic James Berardinelli said fans of "tight, tense, graphic horror" should be able to enjoy the same aplenty in Dawn of the Dead . While Schwarzbaum and Dargis complimented Gunn's script as "sharp" and propulsive, respectively, others took issue with what they believed to be
10112-425: The film follows a group of survivors who try to survive a zombie apocalypse holed up in a suburban shopping mall. Producers Eric Newman and Marc Abraham developed the film rather as a "re-envisioning" of the original Dawn of the Dead , aiming to reinvigorate the zombie genre for modern audiences. They bought the rights from co-producer Richard P. Rubinstein (who produced the original) and hired Gunn to write
10240-420: The film on its 15th anniversary in 2019, Joe Lipsett wrote the following verdict for Bloody Disgusting : Fifteen years later, Dawn of the Dead completely holds up. The film's flaws are mostly at the character level, though having a dumb zombie baby and a few undeveloped red shirts in the mix is hardly a deal breaker. The action – particularly the opening scene and the propane explosion climax – in addition to
10368-428: The film were created by David LeRoy Anderson , with assistance from his actress wife Heather Langenkamp . Prior to accepting the job from Universal Studios ' then-executive James D. Brubaker , Anderson had been in a two-year hiatus from working as a makeup effects artist to operate his company DLA Silverwear. Anderson completed his test makeups for the film over a four-week period, and then he and his team traveled to
10496-577: The film's "moments of inspired audacity". Many noted that the fast-moving zombies of Dawn of the Dead were similar to those of 28 Days Later , but felt that the Danny Boyle film was "darker and creepier", "smarter, more rigorously structured", and could pass for a remake of the original. Despite the general praise, some critics said the film gave scant consideration to Romero's satirical critique of consumerism , among other sociopolitical issues. Ebert and Variety stated that whereas Romero used
10624-407: The film, Bates avoided taking cues from the original's music by the band Goblin , finding its style to be incompatible with what Snyder had filmed. Bates's score combines elements of electronic music and 20th-century orchestra , which was influenced by the works of composers adept at creating dissonance , such as Béla Bartók and Krzysztof Penderecki . Bates employed these musical choices with
10752-400: The first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. Seabrook 's The Magic Island (1929), the account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter half of the 20th century. This interpretation of
10880-443: The intention of making the audience "very, very uncomfortable". Milan Records released Bates's score in physical format for the first time on October 23, 2012, a week after the record label released it digitally via iTunes Store and Amazon Music . The album comprises 31 tracks, all of which were composed by Bates. Dawn of the Dead also marks the first of several collaborations between him and Snyder: he would later compose for
11008-401: The job. However, film critic Harry Knowles , initially an opponent of the remake, read Gunn's script and gave it a positive response on his website Ain't It Cool News , which Gunn said helped eliminate doubts cast upon him by fans of the original. With Dawn of the Dead , Gunn wanted to explore the human condition as well as tell a wholly different story about redemption. He elaborated on
11136-423: The label's previous release was released on January 31, 2023. Dawn of the Dead received generally positive reviews upon its release, with critics praising it as a worthy remake of the original and a fine addition to the zombie genre. The film was considered by most to be an improvement over the original in terms of acting, production values, and scares, although Variety and Derek Malcolm felt that it
11264-454: The lack of plot and character developments. Morris found most of the characters to be too irritating that he believed audiences might want them "thrown from the mall roof to the throngs of undead". The Chicago Tribune said that the characters were clichéd and about as dumb as the undead, though sympathized with the "tragic" moral dilemma faced by Andre as an expectant father. Conversely, Berardinelli said that while there are moments in which
11392-504: The late 1970s. The mid-1980s produced few zombie films of note. Perhaps the most notable entry, the Evil Dead trilogy, while highly influential, are not technically zombie films, but films about demonic possession , despite the presence of the undead. 1985's Re-Animator , loosely based on the Lovecraft story, stood out in the genre, achieving nearly unanimous critical acclaim and becoming
11520-436: The light novel Is This a Zombie? In this context, zombies are often seen as stand-ins for discriminated groups struggling for equality, and the human–zombie romantic relationship is interpreted as a metaphor for sexual liberation and taboo breaking (given that zombies are subject to wild desires and free from social conventions). In Haitian folklore , a zombie ( Haitian French : zombi , Haitian Creole : zonbi )
11648-650: The line" to "respectable" and "annoying". Schwarzbaum and the Chicago Tribune described Sarah Polley 's screen presence as "a perfect against- type heroine" with "a nice anxious stare". IGN was dismayed that least attention was given to Phifer's "naturally charismatic presence" with such a large cast, though felt that Rhames was effective as Polley's "quietly authoritative foil " and praised Jake Weber 's performance in "a thankless role". While giving equal praise to Polley, Phifer, and Rhames, Gingold singled out Weber's existentialist role as "the best of all", as did
11776-480: The mall's parking lot, which was shot with motion-control passes whose green screen elements of 200 extras, combined with the CG zombies, were later composited to create a "digital crowd simulation that looks realistic". Kyle Cooper designed the title sequence for the film, using real human blood. The score for Dawn of the Dead was composed by Tyler Bates , his first for a horror film. Bates became involved with
11904-432: The mall, they are unable to lock the door, forcing an evacuation via the buses. The survivors fight their way out as the buses drive to the marina. Glen loses control of a chainsaw, accidentally killing himself and Monica; blood splatters on the windshield, causing their bus to crash. Steve leaves the group and is killed by a stowaway zombie. While C.J., Kenneth, and Terry leaves the other bus to look for survivors, Ana kills
12032-531: The movie because it's so dark. It's a bleak ending, in a cool way." "[Y]ou could see a movie with one guy rising from the dead or you can see one with thousands." — James Gunn on the likelihood of Dawn of the Dead being overtaken by The Passion of the Christ at the box office Dawn of the Dead was marketed with its 10-minute opening sequence that was broadcast on cable television four nights prior to its theatrical release. Entertainment Weekly projected that it would outperform The Passion of
12160-402: The music was composed by Tyler Bates in his first collaboration with Snyder. Dawn of the Dead was theatrically released on March 19, 2004, by Universal Pictures . Despite Romero's distaste for it, the film earned generally positive reviews from critics, who saw improvements over the original in terms of acting, production values, and scares. However they felt it lacked character development,
12288-415: The nature of the reports of Haitian zombies is viewed as overly credulous. Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification. Particularly, this suggests cases where schizophrenia manifests
12416-537: The original Jonny Quest series (1964) and the James Bond novel Live and Let Die as well as its film adaptation both feature Caribbean villains who falsely claim the voodoo power of zombification to keep others in fear of them. Romero's modern zombie archetype in Night of the Living Dead was influenced by several earlier zombie-themed films, including White Zombie , Revolt of the Zombies (1936) and The Plague of
12544-469: The original film) as a general, sheriff, and televangelist, respectively. Plans to remake 1978's Dawn of the Dead were conceived by producer Eric Newman , a fan of zombie films who cited the George A. Romero horror film as the best in this genre. With the remake, Newman and producer Marc Abraham wanted to reinvigorate the zombie genre for modern audiences as well as "make the old fans happy and make
12672-442: The original while working on its own terms." As of 2024 , Dawn of the Dead is Zack Snyder's highest-rated film on the website. Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 59 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. In 2005, George A. Romero spoke briefly of how dissatisfied he
12800-510: The original, leaving the audience rather numbed and "less mercifully handled, even at the end-credits". Wesley Morris gave a negative review in which he said the film "feels like the product of the PlayStation era" as opposed to a reverence for Romero. Elvis Mitchell had similar objections, writing that "[t]he flesh-eaters are picked off like video-game targets". Conversely, the BBC complimented
12928-462: The other consisted of tents where they would produce painted masks for extras playing background zombies. Extras playing foreground zombies were painted with plain palette makeups in Anderson's mall lab. The makeup artists were given his concept images to work on as references. According to Anderson and Heather Langenkamp, the most extras they ever had in a given day sat between 200 and 400, with
13056-465: The parking lot; the zombies have no interest in him. Chips enters Andy's store safely, but a zombie follows through the dog door. Nicole, fond of Chips, crashes the delivery truck into the gun store, where a now zombified Andy traps her. Kenneth, Michael, Tucker, Terry, and C.J. reach the gun store via the sewers, kill Andy, and rescue Nicole. They grab ammunition and go back to the mall; along the way, Tucker breaks his legs, and C.J. mercy-kills him. Back to
13184-485: The player. Later the same year, Sega 's arcade shooter The House of the Dead introduced running human zombies, who run towards the player and can also jump and swim. The running human zombies introduced in The House of the Dead video games became the basis for the "fast zombies" that became popular in zombie films during the early 21st century, starting with 28 Days Later (2002), the Resident Evil and House of
13312-441: The powders is part of a recently buried child's brain. The process described by Davis was an initial state of deathlike suspended animation , followed by re-awakening — typically after being buried — into a psychotic state. The psychosis induced by the drug and psychological trauma was hypothesised by Davis to reinforce culturally learned beliefs and to cause the individual to reconstruct their identity as that of
13440-418: The producers on reimagining the latter film as opposed to doing it as a "remake", which, in his view, would have entailed re-shooting Romero's script. For that matter, he aimed to make his film a straight horror that was "as serious as a heart attack" and keep every aspect of its production as grounded in reality as possible. His approach included previsualizing the film with storyboards and introducing
13568-540: The redemptive theme of the film in an interview with IGN during a press junket for Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed released that same year: [...] Dawn of the Dead is about redemption because it's about a bunch of people who have lived certain lives, who have maybe not been the best people, and suddenly they have everything that they've used to define themselves: Their careers, their churches, their jobs, their families are stripped away. They're gone. They start at nothing and they have to become who they really are in
13696-430: The resurrected dead are uncontrollable, mostly mute, primitive and extremely violent; though they are not referred to as zombies, their portrayal was prescient, anticipating the modern conception of zombies by several decades. Edgar Rice Burroughs similarly depicted animated corpses in the second book of his Venus series , again without using the terms "zombie" or "undead". Avenging zombies would feature prominently in
13824-587: The script, Gunn took an action-oriented approach while remaining faithful to the basic premise of Romero's version. To develop the plot, he declined to write a treatment in favor of a discovery writing method whereby he would devise hypothetical situations which would ultimately force the characters to evacuate the mall. Gunn decided to leave the origin of the zombie outbreak ambiguous, believing this would give not only equal consideration to each audience's viewpoint (scientific or otherwise) but also something to think about what they would do if they found themselves in
13952-490: The script, and the studio brought Gunn in despite not wanting to deliver them a signal idea for the film beforehand. A fan of the original Dawn of the Dead since he was a young boy, Gunn explained that he took the job because he "kind of saw generally what it could be". The producers conceptualized the remake as more of a "re-envisioning" which would work in some references to the original but would primarily work on its own terms. Co-producer Eric Newman cited Invasion of
14080-436: The script, which oriented the original's premise around the action genre . Intent on making the remake a straight horror, Snyder took over to direct with the goal of keeping every aspect of the production as grounded in reality as possible. Filming took place from June to September 2003, on location at a Toronto shopping mall that was slated for demolition. The special makeup effects were created by David LeRoy Anderson , and
14208-442: The shopping mall to stage a metaphor about consumer society, Snyder used it merely as a convenient shelter for his characters. Gingold lamented that unlike Romero's film, Snyder's provided no social commentary on racism through its Black characters Kenneth and Andre as well as the interracial relationship between Andre and Luda. In contrast, Manohla Dargis commented that Romero's consumerist metaphor has lost its significance in
14336-555: The standard approach for explaining zombie origins in popular fiction that followed Resident Evil . There has also been shift towards an action approach, which has led to another evolution of the zombie archietype, the "fast zombie" or running zombie. In contrast to Romero's classic slow zombies, "fast zombies" can run, are more aggressive and are often more intelligent. This type of zombie has origins in 1990s Japanese horror video games. In 1996, Capcom 's survival horror video game Resident Evil featured zombie dogs that run towards
14464-416: The top spot The Passion of the Christ held for three consecutive weekends. Variety reported, "Some 63% of Dawn [audiences] were under age 25, with 57% of patrons male. Hispanic moviegoers comprised 21% of its supporters and African-Americans 14%." Dawn of the Dead ended its theatrical run as a commercial success, grossing $ 102 million worldwide on a $ 26 million budget; it grossed $ 59 million in
14592-405: The undead. Victor Halperin directed White Zombie (1932), a horror film starring Bela Lugosi . Here zombies are depicted as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician. Zombies, often still using this voodoo-inspired rationale, were initially uncommon in cinema, but their appearances continued sporadically through the 1930s to the 1960s, with films including I Walked with
14720-535: The vengeful dead also informed the evolution of the modern conception of the vampire . Later notable 19th century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierce 's " The Death of Halpin Frayser " and various Gothic Romanticism tales by Edgar Allan Poe . Though their works could not be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later writers such as H. P. Lovecraft , by Lovecraft's own admission. In
14848-453: The years since the original's release, "with the politics of consumption now an established academic field and shopping now considered a statement of identity ". IGN praised the film's tonal departure from Romero's, calling it "a calculated risk that paid off". The Hollywood Reporter and Chicago Tribune commented that Dawn of the Dead was content to indulge in bloody zombie killings devoid of meaning and introspection once present in
14976-474: The zombie lineage back to ancient Mesopotamia . In the Descent of Ishtar , the goddess Ishtar threatens: If you do not open the gate for me to come in, I shall smash the door and shatter the bolt, I shall smash the doorpost and overturn the doors, I shall raise up the dead and they shall eat the living: And the dead shall outnumber the living! She repeats this same threat in a slightly modified form in
15104-448: The zombie revival of the 2000s. The 1981 film Hell of the Living Dead referenced a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion: an idea also used in Dan O'Bannon 's 1985 film Return of the Living Dead . Return of the Living Dead featured zombies that hungered specifically for human brains. Zombie films in the 1980s and 1990s were not as commercially successful as Dawn of the Dead in
15232-400: The zombie, as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh of living people, is drawn largely from George A. Romero 's film Night of the Living Dead (1968), which was partly inspired by Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954). The word zombie is not used in Night of the Living Dead , but was applied later by fans. Following the release of such zombie films as Dawn of
15360-436: The zombified Steve and retrieves his boat keys. Eventually the remaining survivors get to the marina, and C.J. sacrifices himself so the others can escape. Michael reveals a bite wound and kills himself as Ana, Kenneth, Nicole, Terry, and Chips drive away on the yacht. Footage from a camcorder found on the boat shows Steve's escapades before the outbreak and concludes as the group runs out of supplies, approaches an island, and
15488-492: Was Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay (1991). According to Kim Newman in the book Nightmare Movies (2011), the "zombie revival began in the Far East" during the late 1990s, largely inspired by two Japanese zombie games released in 1996: Capcom 's Resident Evil , which started the Resident Evil video game series that went on to sell 24 million copies worldwide by 2006, and Sega 's arcade shooter House of
15616-568: Was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying. Romero's reinvention of zombies is notable in terms of its thematics; he used zombies not just for their own sake, but as a vehicle "to criticize real-world social ills—such as government ineptitude, bioengineering, slavery, greed and exploitation—while indulging our post-apocalyptic fantasies". Night
15744-461: Was excessively gory and also indifferent to Romero's preoccupation with consumerism . Dawn of the Dead was a commercial success, grossing $ 102.3 million worldwide on a $ 26 million budget. Retrospective reviews have called it Snyder's best film. A spiritual successor , Army of the Dead , was released in 2021. After finishing a long shift as a nurse in the Milwaukee area , Ana returns to her suburban neighborhood and her husband, Luis. Caught up in
15872-535: Was just in the ER – pale, with lots of fresh blood. The second stage has moist wounds but the skin is beginning to break down. There is a lot of discoloration and mottling, mostly blues and greens. The third stage is the most intense, with the skeletal form coming through. The wounds are dried-up, the skin is sloughing off and colors are oily blacks. Head hits were done practically through various methods, such as bullet hit squibs covered with prosthetic scalps and attached to
16000-419: Was only intermittently scary. Despite giving it a negative review, Variety said that the film was otherwise "more palatable" than the "atrocious" Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake released the previous year. Michael Gingold stated, "[...] Dawn of the Dead joins The Ring and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as an update that both honors its source and emerges as an effective horror film in its own right",
16128-456: Was personally not on board with the characters' "risky" plan to escape from the mall in lieu of awaiting the zombies' natural death, he remarked that "taking chances makes for good action scenes". Mitchell criticized the plot as "strictly by the numbers" and said that the climactic gun store scene "shows why zombie pictures aren't unsettling anymore". The ensemble cast was generally praised: comments ranged from "superlative" and "convincing down
16256-449: Was the first of six films in Romero's Living Dead series . Its first sequel, Dawn of the Dead , was released in 1978. Lucio Fulci 's Zombi 2 was released just months after Dawn of the Dead as an ersatz sequel ( Dawn of the Dead was released in several other countries as Zombi or Zombie ). Dawn of the Dead was the most commercially successful zombie film for decades, up until
16384-451: Was with Dawn of the Dead during an interview with actor Simon Pegg for Time Out . Romero said that although the remake could pass for a good action film, he felt it was aimless and "more of a video game" for that matter, as well as maintained he was "not terrified of things running at me". Numerous publications have named Dawn of the Dead as Zack Snyder's best film, with Den of Geek considering it his magnum opus . Revisiting
#99900