Movie

Hell on Earth

Get ready for nightmares when the undead wake up

Photographs courtesy of UIP

Did you Know? Actors Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger and Tom Savini all appeared in the original 1978 version of this film but playing different characters.

Why it started and where it started nobody knows. Whatever happened, however it started, overnight, the world has become a living nightmare of unbelievable proportions. The planet�s population has been hit by an inexplicable, unfathomable and lethal plague � and the dead aren�t staying dead. Corpses searching for their next meal are now stalking the few remaining survivors, driven by their uncontrollable hunger to feed upon the flesh of the living.

After a terrifying escape from her suburban Wisconsin home on the morning after, Ana Clark (Sarah Polley) runs into a small group of the still-living, including a stoic police officer, Kenneth (Ving Rhames); Michael, an unassuming electronics salesman (Jake Weber); a street-wise Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant wife. This ragtag group seeks refuge in an abandoned, upscale suburban mall.

As the world outside grows more hellish, as the ever-increasing army of decomposing zombies tirelessly strives to get into the mall, the survivors battle the undead, each other and their own fears and suspicions.

Sealed off from the rest of what used to be the world, the mall�s inhabitants � now one of the last bastions of humanity � must learn to work with each other and use every available resource in their fight to remain alive, and more importantly, human.

Hell is unleashed when Dawn of the Dead hits theatres on April 9.

This zombie is for you

�The mall�s inhabitants must fight to remain alive, and more importantly, human.�

Dawn of the Dead is a remake of George A. Romero�s 1978 horror classic of the same name. The movie was a sequel to the director�s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, a low-budget flick in which radiation-infected zombies rise from the dead to feed on the living.

Both movies are considered among the best horror films of all time and the producers of the 2004 film said they wanted to share the fright of those films with a new generation.

�We really saw this as a chance to continue the zombie genre for a new audience,� producer Eric Newman said. �I would like to see this movie make the old fans happy and make a lot of new fans. That�s the only reason we are doing it.�

The producers said the new film isn�t so much a remake as a new vision based on a classic film. �The 1979 Dawn is obviously a cult film, revered by its fans and rightly viewed as a landmark in horror films,� producer Marc Abraham said. �We believed we could bring the same intense kind of motion picture experience to a whole new audience of young moviegoers who probably hadn�t seen the original, and we would use all of the prevailing technology to do so.�

Twenty-five years on, the dead are ready to walk again.

Vocabulary

proportions (n): measurements or size
unfathomable (adj): too strange or difficult to be understood
flesh (n): the soft substance between the skin and bones of animal or human bodies
stoic (adj): able to suffer pain or trouble without complaining or showing what you are feeling
unassuming (adj): not wanting to draw attention to yourself or to your abilities or status
ragtag (adj): (of a group of people or an organisation) not well organised; giving a bad impression
decompose (v): to be destroyed gradually by natural chemical processes
bastion (n): a group of people or a system that protects a way of life or a belief when it seems that it may disappear
cult (adj): very popular with a particular group of people
revere (v): to feel great respect or admiration for somebody/something