This review has been along time coming. I was compelled immediately to write a review the very night I viewed this fanedit, but something stayed my hands from the keyboard. I felt I needed to think about it a day or so. By then, just when I was ready to write it I suddenly thought "How can you write a review and not see the original Romero version?" So I put in Romero's version....all 3 of them! Then, obviously not being satisfied with leaving it at that, I watched Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD. It was during the viewing of DAY that I suddenly realized that Tranzor's edit of DAWN OF THE DEAD 2004 had unleashed something in me that was making me rethink these films all over again. I'm gonna spare you the list of the other subsequent movies I went through, but they were indeed horror films.
Remakes are a thin line between love and hate, and by all accounts this remake should've never happened NOR have worked as well as it managed. The original hit a nerve and for the fans brave enough to see it and look beyond the gore you are rewarded with a look deep into ourselves and the society we allow to define us each and every day. That's not always an easy look. Nor is it what film viewers of the newer generation seem to want from their films. The original cut of DOTD 2004 is evident of that. Although entertaining and better than a typical remake normally is, it was still riddled with flaws. Of course, the biggest flaw for me (and a certain number of others out there) are running, limber zombies who suddenly seem to be able to compete in the Olympics. Unless Tranzor has another wallet lost somewhere in the laundry basket with a cool million for reshoots, there's just no way to truly fix that. He did, however, relieve us of their ability to jump so high and to be born as babies (thank God on the removal of the latter!). He also tightened the reigns in on a few other areas and, by a greater grace, made the ending have the impact it SHOULD have given in the theaters the first time around.
It's odd to think that some faneditors can almost outhink their Hollywood counterparts, but then again there are too many who do this sort of work because it most importantly provides them with a paycheck first rather than because they simply love film. I think it's the love of something that can make it have a lasting impression, and I can tell with each fanedit of Tranzor's I've ever seen that no matter how drastic his changes are or how subtle the rearranging...he's got a love for these films that just won't die. And they are able to burn brighter with his edits and in turn relight the candles of the original cuts. I was not prepared for the ability of this edit to not only do all of that, but also rekindle the lights of so many of the other horror films that for many years I'd taken for granted as merely something to pass the time while I had some popcorn or drank some sodas late into the night and early before the dawn. And dammit, I LOVED that feeling. Thanks for this edit, Tranzor. Whether you meant to or not, you finally gave this remake enough strength that instead of running around in circles near films like 28 DAYS LATER, RESIDENT EVIL, or countless other "new wave zombies" it's now lumbering directly behind the original it derives from....slowly following some kind of instinct. Memory, of what films like the original used to do. This was an important part in their audiences' lives.
When there's no more room for remakes, the fanedits will walk the earth....