What are the biggest differences between George Romero's 1978 zombie movie Dawn of the Dead and Zack Snyder's 2004 remake? With Snyder making a return to the zombie genre with his upcoming zombie-heist movie Army of the Dead, which hits Netflix on May 21, Dawn of the Dead is surely being revisited by many viewers. As Snyder's very first movie, Dawn of the Dead isn't so much a remake of Romero's movie as it is a complete re-imagining of it, with Snyder commenting "it was more like a reference to the original than a straight remake" in Screen Rant's Army of the Dead set visit.
Romero is credited as the godfather of the zombie genre, kickstarting it with 1968's Night of the Living Dead. Romero would return to the series numerous times over the years in films like Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead. Looking over all of Romero's contributions to the zombie genre, Dawn of the Dead is perhaps his most highly regarded zombie movie.
By the same token, Snyder's Dawn of the Dead was something of a sleeper hit in 2004, to the point where it's now arguably the movie that first springs to mind among the general public when the title Dawn of the Dead is heard. Snyder's movie is also one of the more widely beloved remakes of the 21st century, and that clearly comes down to how much it stands apart from Romero's original. Here are the biggest differences between George Romero's and Zack Snyder's versions of Dawn of the Dead.
The Zombies
The most readily recognizable difference between the 1978 and 2004 versions of Dawn of the Dead is the zombies themselves. Releasing when the zombie genre was still in its relative infancy, the zombies of Romero's movie mindlessly lurch around as their numbers grow. Like the zombies in Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead's zombies are slow-moving predators who devour their prey in equally slow yet horrific fashion when they get their hands on them. With the movie being in color as opposed to black and white like Night of the Living Dead, the zombies also have an ash-grey appearance, with Romero's movie also mining a little dark humor from the zombies desiccated bodies.
As perhaps the starkest contrast between the two films, the zombies of Snyder's Dawn of the Dead are anything but slow, sprinting after their prey. They're also much more aggressive, snarling, drooling, and tearing their victims to shreds. Though Romero's film was hardly precious about graphic bloodshed, Snyder's is considerably bloodier, with every zombie in the movie drenched in the blood. Though the zombies of Snyder's movie are an unmistakable departure from Romero's, they're also just the first difference between the two versions of Dawn of the Dead.
The Story
Calling Snyder's Dawn of the Dead a remake of Romero's is arguably a misnomer, given that, aside from sharing a title and the premise of humans hiding from zombies in a mall, the two are otherwise completely different movies (Romero's movie also boasting three different cuts to the lone extended version of Snyder's). Following the opening in a TV station and the chaos during a SWAT team raid of a housing project overrun by zombies, the characters of Romero's movie arrive at the mall by commandeering a helicopter and have to navigate securing it with many zombies already inside. Romero's film also takes place over a period of several months, while a turf war breaks out when a biker gang arrives to try to claim the mall for themselves.
Snyder's film is much faster-paced and dives into the chaos of the zombie apocalypse very swiftly, with Sarah Polley's Ana fleeing her zombified husband in her car and eventually meeting a group of other survivors to seek refuge in the mall. From there, the entire sequence of events plays out differently as the characters in Snyder's version come to realize they're on their own and try to make the most of it in the mall. The movie also takes place over a much shorter timeframe of about a month, with the DVD extra short film The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed providing an exact timeline of the events of the movie, spanning May 7 to June 6, 2004, with the movie itself wrapping up the next day.
The Characters
Romero's Dawn of the Dead zeroes in on four main characters, Peter, Stephen, Roger, and Fran, respectively played by Ken Foree, David Emge, Reiniger, and Gaylen Ross, with the movie following them as they settle in the mall, secure it, and lavishly live out their materialistic dreams over a period of months. Eventually, their aforementioned conflict with the biker gang leads the mall to again be overrun by zombies. Both Stephen and Roger become zombies over the course of the movie, with Peter and Fran escaping in the helicopter, Peter dryly commenting "Alright" after Fran informs him they're low on fuel and their destination unknown as the movie ends.
Snyder's Dawn of the Dead brings a much larger collection of people into the mall, with Ana, Kenneth, and Michael, portrayed by Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, and Jake Weber being loose analogues of the protagonists of Romero's movie. The remake also adds a new character in Bruce Bohne's Andy, hiding in his gun shop across the lot from the mall and forming a friendship with Kenneth, the two passing the time with games of chess via binoculars and zombie sniping. Snyder's movie also throws the audience for a loop with Michael Kelly's security guard C.J., who begins the film bossing the new refugees to the mall around and seeming prepared to throw them to the zombies in order to survive.
By the end, he's become a full team player as the group attempts to flee the mall, and heroically sacrifices himself to allow the others to escape. By contrast, Ty Burrell's Steve goes through no redemption arc of his own, arriving as a smug, insufferable jerk and dying that way when he's attacked by a zombie at the end, and per his earlier request, being put down for good by Ana after his undead transformation. Though no characters are carried over directly from Romero's version to Snyder's, some cast members do make cameos, including horror movie make-up maven Tom Savini, who played one of the biker gang members in the original, appearing as a cop explaining how to kill zombies on TV. Ken Foree also makes a cameo as a televangelist, intoning Peter's immortal quote from the original, "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."
The Themes
Many reviewers have interpreted Romero's Dawn of the Dead as a sly critique of consumerism. With images throughout the film of zombies aimlessly wandering through the mall as stereotypical muzak plays, it's certainly not hard to miss their presentation as "consumers" of a different sort. The human characters also reflect the movie's theme of materialism, treating themselves like royalty with the endless bounty the mall offers to them and living without a care in the world amid the apocalypse unfolding outside the doors of their newfound safe haven. Having built a paradise for themselves in the mall shielded from the hell going on outside, the human character's conflict with the invading biker gang brings that idyllic existence to an end when their arrival allows the zombies to overtake the mall. As Peter and Fran flee the mall in the chopper, the unpleasant reality of the world sets in once more. Their days of living the high life removed from the effects of the apocalypse are over; now it's all about survival.
Snyder's movie is more focused on characters dealing with personal loss and achieving redemption as the world falls apart around them. Ana has her entire world destroyed in a flash when she's forced to flee her zombified husband, with Kenneth coming to terms with the inevitable death of his brother at a nearby military base. Michael also realizes that he's more than just a series of unremarkable jobs and failed marriages in his relationship with Ana, while Mekhi Phifer's Andre tries to make up for the mistakes of his past by ensuring the birth of his daughter at any cost. Unfortunately, his obsession ends in tragedy for the whole family when his wife dies of her zombie bite and his daughter is born as a mutated infant zombie. Snyder's movie also leaves the fate of the survivors uncertain, the bitten Michael remaining behind and shooting himself before his transformation as Ana, Kenneth, Terry, and Nicole depart by boat to what they think is an uninhabited island, only to encounter more zombies as Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness" kicks in (Richard Cheese's cover of the song being heard earlier during a brief montage of the characters enjoying the spoils of the mall.)
With Snyder diving back into the zombie genre with Army of the Dead, and an entire Armyverse waiting to unfold with the movie's forthcoming prequel and anime series, it's to be expected that Dawn of the Dead is probably about go through a resurgence ahead of its release. Romero undoubtedly set the template for zombie movies with Night of the Living Dead and even more so with Dawn of the Dead. Snyder's version elected to just borrow the title and the core concept and travel its own road from there, and with the changes it made, became just as much of a zombie movie trendsetter itself.