In the "why on Earth would you do this to a beloved classic?" pile, we have yet again, a remake of George Romero's 1985 flesh eater film Dawn of the Dead. The market became heavily saturated with zombie films over the past several years. We've seen every type of zombie movie, including Nazi zombies, cockney zombies, and even zombie beavers. Since the creative spark is dying out in this horror genre, we are now being delivered remakes of remakes, which brings us to Dawn of the Dead: Bloodline, which is a travesty of in many ways. Not only is this movie pointless and serves no purpose to entertain, but other than some decent enough practical gore effects, every bit of storytelling, photography, and acting is all incoherent and highly laughable.
In the middle of the film, I found myself becoming sad for the late great George Romero in that something he created could be washed over with something as bad as Bloodline. Whatever social or political messages Romero hid under his films is clearly not present here. Instead, we are forced to watch unlikable characters who seem to yell the entire time, make the worst decisions, and have the same lazy zombie kills and backstory that we've seen countless times before.
With modern shows like The Walking Dead, you'd think there'd be some original ideas or story growth, but the people involved with Bloodline seem to have missed that memo. Like Romero's 1985 classic, a zombie outbreak occurs and a group of survivors, focusing on science and military personnel, all hole up in an underground bunker where the clash heads, while trying to figure out a cure. In walks a zombie who is treated like Frankenstein's monster who seems to be smarter than your average zombie. In the original film, this character was named "Bub," and you felt quite sympathetic for him.
Bloodline offers none of this, but instead gives this "Bub" zombie a backstory who was a sexual assaulter and rapist. Not only that, this new zombie can speak in full sentences, but in a low voice and handle objects like a highly intelligent human being, while the other zombies around him, run wildly and have high pitched roars. Other aspects of the movie never make any sense, which includes a scene during a zombie outbreak at the underground bunker, where a young child runs directly through the crowd of zombies, rather than behind the big guys with guns, and escapes unharmed and untouched. It just doesn't make any sense.
The dialogue is even worse with some of the worst delivery I've seen in a while. It's stale and seems like the actors were reading the script for the first time with no direction. You're supposed to feel dread or frightened when these characters talk, but it just comes across as someone giving an insurance seminar with no emotion. There were some decent enough practical effects of blood and guts, but it's nothing you haven't seen before in countless other films. Day of the Dead: Bloodline does not deserve your attention.
The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats
Day of the Dead: Bloodline comes with a 50GB Blu-ray Disc from Lionsgate. There is an insert for a digital download included too. The disc is housed in a hard, plastic case with a cardboard sleeve. Trailers for other films play before the main menu sets up.
Day of the Dead: Bloodline comes with a 1080p HD transfer and is presented in 2.39:1 aspect ratio. With most horror films, there are certain filters applied to give a dark and scary look, and this one is no different. There are blue and green filters applied here to give that decaying feel where a lot of the color is muted in most scenes. However, there are certain colors that really stand out nicely, mostly being the blue filters that make some of the main zombie blue-ish in color, which always contrasts very well with the bright and eye-popping red blood that flows quite often. Other colors seem to be turned down in both exterior and interior shots.
Black levels are mostly deep and inky, but most of the film is shot in dark areas, which tend to bleed here and there. Skin tones on the living look a little pale as well. Detail is mostly sharp and vivid in well-lit scenes, where you'll be able to make out the gooey practical makeup effects and all of the guts that come with it, but other than that, the darkness and filters of the film tend to block out a lot of that good detail, including closeups. The film does a good enough job with its video presentation, but it's not the best I've seen.
This release comes with a lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix and does its job in being loud with scary crescendos as the characters turn corners or enter dark rooms. Other than that, this audio mix doesn't do anyone any favors. In fact, it seems like they took one or two zombie growls and one or two zombie bites and just repeated them for every audio sound throughout the film. Yes, they're loud and robust, but it's the same sound, which got quite annoying and even laughable.
The sound effects in the rear speakers do provide those zombie screams, footsteps, and gunshots, all of which sounds good, but again, when you're hearing the same sound over and over, it becomes a tedious task to keep interested. There is some heft too with the bigger action moments with decent bass that never crosses into over-the-top territory. Directionality is great, and the dialogue is always clear and easy to follow if you can keep yourself listening to the film. It's a decent audio track, but nothing memorable.
Day of the Dead: Bloodline: Reviving Horror (HD, 15 Mins.) - A promo fluff EPK with the cast and crew talking about making the film, the original movie, and the things they tried to do differently. Not the best extra.
Day of the Dead: Bloodline is a remake of a remake that never gives us a reason to like it. The dialogue, characters, storyline are all shells of themselves with no real motivation or reason. They simply are there to exist and get eaten. While there are some decent gore effects, this is one film you're not going to enjoy. The video and audio presentations are both passable, but the one extra is just a promo EPK piece with no real insight. If you dearly love the horror and zombie genre, don't let this film taint your enjoyment. Avoid if possible.
