Needless to say it made an impression.

Pre-dating flicks like “Aliens” and “From Dusk Til Dawn,” the
original “Dawn of the Dead” was the first movie to truly fuse action
with gory horror. This tale of a band of four survivors who avoid a
zombie plague by holing up in a Pennsylvania shopping mall had
everything: blood, guts, guns, chases, helicopter-blade decapitations
and a healthy dose of cultural satire.

Most importantly, it perfectly set up a scenario in which the
audience could empathize with those on the screen and ponder, “Yeah,
that’s probably what I would do if put in a situation in which my
society became ripped apart.”

This makes it all the more surprising that rookie director Zack
Snyder’s new remake of “Dawn of the Dead” is such a worthy successor.
Snyder and screenwriter James Gunn (no relation to the KU
professor/sci-fi expert of the same name) manage to keep all the
specific elements that made the first film a success, yet they
thoroughly reinvent the characters and the plot.

The result is a nonstop collision of thrills, chills and societal ills.

Whereas the original began in medias res at a Philadelphia TV station
coping with the crisis, the latest takes a more leisurely approach by
first establishing a believably mundane setting.

Ana (Sarah Polley) is returning from her nursing shift to her
cookie-cutter block in suburban Milwaukee. Like a horrific domino
effect, a plague begins to spread throughout the peaceful burg that
causes those bitten to become undead cannibals on the prowl for human
flesh.

(Last Monday the USA Network took part in a unique promotional
campaign by debuting the first 10 minutes uncut prior to the opening
weekend. It proves a brilliant gambit considering that this sequence
is so skillfully crafted that a viewer can’t help but be sucked into
the story.)

Soon Ana has hooked up with a batch of other survivors who have just
narrowly escaped from an overrun military shelter.

“Is everyone there dead?” asks police officer Kenneth (Ving Rhames).

“Dead-ish,” responds the cautious Michael (Jake Weber).

Together with a pistol-toting hothead (Mekhi Phifer) and his very
pregnant Russian girlfriend (Inna Korobkina) – you know that birth
ain’t gonna end up pretty – the group takes refuge at the Crossroads
Mall. It’s here that the film really expands from the self-contained
setting of the 1979 version by continually adding memorable
characters and new environments to explore.

Also quite good is the thread of humor that helps punctuate the
tension. Much of this is character-driven, especially those stemming
from a condescending yuppie (Ty Burrell) who is bitchy enough to be a
cast member of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

(It’s no surprise that with headliners like Polley and Rhames the
acting is light years beyond the rather rickety performances of the
original.)

There are also a number of quirky little touches that complement the
action, such as the group first entering the mall to the strains of a
Muzak loop playing “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” Then there’s a hilarious
scene in which a stranded owner of a gun shop on a neighboring
rooftop takes target practice on the hundreds of zombies surrounding
him based on the suggestions of those at the mall.

“Jay Leno” they write on a large dry-erase board to communicate their
choice. Soon a wandering creature with similar salt-and-pepper hair
and a large chin gets a bullet through its noggin.

The main criticism that one can level at this “Dawn of the Dead” is
that it is indisputably derivative. The success of last year’s eerie
“28 Days Later” has most influenced the remake. Now instead of the
lumbering, pasty zombies of Romero’s trilogy (which also includes
“Night of the Living Dead” and “Day of the Dead”), these fiends are
victims of a virus that makes them swift and aggressive like packs of
wild dogs.

But Snyder and Gunn also pilfer liberally from non-zombie movies such
as “The Road Warrior” and “Tremors.” No one will accuse this effort
of being conceptually innovative. It simply offers first-rate
execution of a familiar cinematic premise.

There are also a few obvious continuity glitches – one canine-oriented one in particular – that appear to be the product of expositional scenes being dropped in order to keep the picture’s running time under two hours.

But these are petty quibbles for a project that is such a powerhouse
entry within its own hybrid genre. It succeeds as an action epic. It
succeeds as a horror flick. And it succeeds as an updated homage to
an influential “midnight movie.”

Remember, just because the film is about zombies doesn’t mean it has
to be brain dead.