Product Details

• Actors: Ving Rhames, Michael Welch
• Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: First Look Pictures
• DVD Release Date: April 8, 2008
• Run Time: 87 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (151 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00116GEFW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,773 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

DAY OF THE DEAD VERSION 2 - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Travesty to see one of Romero's classic titles treated in this manner, May 21, 2008

By 

Jenny J.J.I. "A New Yorker" (That Lives in Carolinas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Day of the Dead (DVD)

I honestly don't want to waste my time with this but I too have watched this film. I do enjoy George Romero zombie flicks and after watching this I thought this was a joke. More disappointed actually cause all I got was some rookie director coming up with a 'remake' of one of the master's well known title and jacking it all up. A rookie in the sense of trying to capture the dark, gritty, viciousness of the zombie epidemic as envisioned by Romero in his earlier films. Steve Miner has directed episodes of Dawson's Creek, (which explains some of this film's truly boring dialog and Ken and Barbie type characters) and Smallville (which has effectively turned Superman into a soap opera).What Miner has done here is show us that he can capture all of the plot lines, and zombie behavior previously shown in a dozen zombie flicks, put Mena Suvari (of American Beauty) in the lead and make a horrible horror movie.

While this film might appeal to young folks who don't understand the art as developed by Romero, those who do will undoubtedly turn away from this one after the first half hour. It only takes that long to get an idea of the poor characters. Suvari plays an army Corporal (who carries a gun with no bullets. Why even pull it out?) Ving Rhames has a small part, perhaps wise enough to not stick around. Suvari's character is remarkably calm in the face of danger despite her seemingly bad decision making. The rest of the cast are like refugees from a Dawson's Creek episode. Nick Cannon (Mariah Cary's husband) plays the part of the bad a.., machismo Army Private, and while not giving a particularly good performance, due in part to the horrible script, Cannon does manage to bring some charisma and toughness to the character.

The zombies seem to do extraordinary things one moment (like crawl on ceilings and run real fast-like the Dawn of the Dead remake), but when it comes to attacking the lead actors they seem inept. This picture doesn't do any justice to the zombie film genre. It ranks down there with the very low budget. The title was used to possibly draw attention to it's existence, nothing more.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertainingly bad, April 9, 2008

By 

Dave. K (Staten Island, Ny) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Day of the Dead (DVD)

First thing I wanna say is what the hell is up with the cover art? It just might rate as one of the very worst I have ever seen. There were others and all were bad, but the one they went with is easily the worst.

Don't go into Day of the Dead expecting a remake of the George Romero classic. This is a remake by name only; about the only thing the share in common are some zombies, the military and a couple of characters from the original. Most of the characters are created for this movie and the whole plot completely different. Day of the Dead 08 is only a remake by name only attempting to cash in on the success of the Dawn of the Dead remake and Romero's Dead flicks.

Day of the Dead is entertaining in how bad it was. Most of this will probably be lost on the audience since most of us won't be able to help, but compare to the two. As a remake Day of the Dead is a travesty of a film and complete insult to the original. But as a stand alone movie it's actually fun in how bad it is. I was able to put the original out of my head and take the movie for what it was; a silly zombie flick.

Day of the Dead features zombies that run, which is common these days, but they also are able to jump put windows, crawl across ceilings, climb over gates and also even use weapons. If anything Day of the Dead is more of a remake of Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City. Those two have more in common than this does with the original Day of the Dead.

The screenplay was written by Jeffrey Reddick and it actually wasn't too bad, while most of his characters lack any depth, the script does have some fairly good moments. Again judging things on its own and not comparing to Romero's Day of the Dead, the script isn't too bad. It has elements that work and some that don't. So far I've liked Jeffrey Reddick and while this is easily his weakest script honestly it wasn't so bad. It does follow the typical Hollywood movie with the comedy aspect and some jokes were about 10-years too late, but overall it's an entertaining screenplay. Not great, but entertaining.

Director Steve Miner got his start in 1981 with Friday the 13th Part II and the following year did the 3rd installment. At the time Miner got his start there were many filmmakers just starting out in the horror genre and some others who may have been around for 10-years or more were at the peak of their career and making some of the best films of their career. So I suppose some filmmakers are bound to be left out in the cold and it seems Steve Miner was one of them. One thing that does surprise me is that isn't better known. He directed the first Friday the 13th with Jason as the killer and the first with Jason to get his Iconic mask.

Steve Miner seems to have gone back and forth between feature films and TV episodes. I do enjoy some of his work mainly his two Friday the 13th movies, but the problem with Steve Miner, which is good for Hollywood is he has no style of his own. Most of his films are just following the basic formula of another filmmaker; which also helps him land jobs when you need a quick cash in Steve Miner is the man to go to. If only he injected more of his own style in his work I think while he may not go down as one of the greatest horror filmmakers he would have had a much better career. He's shown flashes of originality, but he still does it by the books.

Steve Miner was the wrong choice for Day of the Dead; it lacks originality at every turn and he never manages to build any suspense or tension. There were a few scenes that could have worked better, but the zombies just roam around like a bunch of shuffling idiots. I assume Day of the Dead was meant to be a little campy, but it was just too much at times, thus killing any chance for a legit attempt at any suspense. The pacing of the movie is pretty good there is enough happening to keep the viewer from getting bored and while there were flaws with the script, with another director I do feel this could have been a lot better, not great, but better. But what we get is a movie that is rather bad, but entertainingly bad. Visually the movie is also weak, while it doesn't suffer from shaky cam syndrome the shot selections are kinda poor and sometimes it's tough to make out what's happening and the flashy editing doesn't really help matters.

Despite my comments I do enjoy some of Steve Miner's work in particular the two Friday the 13th movies he did. Most of my comments here were negative, but I do enjoy his work and I know he could do better. Not sure what went wrong on his part, but I do like some of his work, he just lacks originality.

The acting was fairly decent; none of the major cast members are bad. They put in good enough performances; the strongest coming from Mena Suvari as Sarah. Some say she didn't have the military persona down, but regardless I thought she did well and is the saving grace of the movie. Ving Rhames gives his usual tough guy performance and does well in a rather small role. Nick Cannon as Salazar while giving a fairly good performance is just damn annoying; his constant one-liners really aren't that funny with the exception of maybe one or two.

There is plenty of gore, but the problem is most of it is CGI, which is really annoying. Some of the CGI was fairly decent, but most were bad. Some of it looks like something you'd seen on Playstation 2. Even good CGI I'm not really into, but when it's poor it makes it even worse. Steve Miner is an old school guy I'm sure he could have been more creative and had some simple, but effective deaths instead of the poor fake looking CGI.

Day of the Dead was originally meant for a theatrical release, but ended up going direct to video, which isn't much of a surprise. Everything about Day of the Dead is DTV, but with that said I will admit to enjoying it. Again as a remake this is a travesty and an insult, but as its own movie it's sort of fun in how bad it is. Most reviews for Day of the Dead will be quite poor and honestly I understand why and I'm not even gonna attempt to defend the movie.

But with that said I did enjoy Day of the Dead as its own movie, because again outside of a couple of things this is a remake by name only. If you can view it as just another zombie movie you just might enjoy it a little bit. Sure Day of the Dead is rather bad, but it can also be fun.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Zombies movies hit a new low....>.<, December 29, 2009

By 

JT "I wear my pants backwards and on fire, ju... (Odessa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Day of the Dead : Widescreen Edition (DVD)

I'm surprised I'm the first to review this... well I can't call it a film. I sat down to watch this movie and immediately walked away... well no words can express the anger at what I saw. And I have to keep it clean for Amazon's sake, with respect to the folks who read these.

This film, if you can call it that, belongs somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. It's just that bad. Ving Rhames' character as the infamous Capt. Rhodes was short-lived and he went down in a crowd of zombies without a fight or awesome last words. He was just dragged off into another room and that was the end.

The zombies are terrible, I mean absolutely horrendous in the makeup department. They looked like someone threw up acrylic paint and dumped it on 300 extras, then added some latex for effect. What really took the cake was how the zombies could do an acrobatic leap off a ten story building and not splatter, or crawl on a roof like some human-cheetah-spider-gecko hybrid make it totally lame.

The dialogue is trite and hackneyed, the typical teenagers making out in the woods and killed marks the beginning and the rest looks like a bad made for Sci-Fi movie. More than anything, the film insults the viewers at every corner. Sadly, it's just an excuse for Nick Cannon to shoot his mouth of every five minutes to the point you cheer when the zombies get him.

The sad excuse for a "trained zombie" here aptly named Bud (they can't use BUB because they'd get sued by Romero), doesn't eat people because he's a vegetarian zombie (?????).

The story makes no sense at all just the same. One of the most ridiculous scares in movie history occurs when the soldiers enter a trailer. The overused disheveled appearance and blood streaks indicate violence of some nature all the way to the bedroom and end at strategically placed comforter on the floor. They turn it over expecting, wait for it..., nothing to jump out. The other soldier still manages to freak and bump some curtains behind, through which two severely mangled bodies are mysteriously standing up straight to fall out on him (?).

Worse, police officers show up randomly and find three bodies(?) this time then, wait for it, the power suddenly goes out to the whole town. Then a zombie mircalously jumps out of the dark and manages to take out four very well armed men without taking a bullet.(?)

Confused yet? Well it gets worse. The moment the power goes out, the worker (who is for some unknown reason still working on the place after dark) see some "shadows" walk out of the dark. The worker begins talking to them and the zombies jump on her, sending her into a strategically placed electrode thingy on the floor. Her blood suddenly shorts it out and all the power to town goes out(?).

To make matters worse, the zombies go from normal to super rotten in just under five seconds. If a body decayed that fast, they would be stumbling not running an Olympic Marathon to kill someone.

Then for some reason the scientist who created the zombie virus is that tall guy from the early seasons of Mad TV, you know that guy that played Stan the Java Man with his eyes bugging out and permanently whipped up on caffeine. Yeah I started laughing when he changed into a zombie... wait I thought was trying to be serious.

Then it ends with that classic all is well endings, and zombie suddenly jumps at the camera to get in that "Oh S---" scare at the end. Yeah, I was ready to put more holes in my wall than the Dawn of the Dead Remake I busted by guitar getting excited over.

With this movie, all bets are off at owning or even viewing it. Next time block the channel it's playing on to keep from destroying your eyes, should you happen across it late in the wee hours of the morning when nothing else is good on. Better yet, when you see it, turn off the TV and go to bed. You're better off saving that hour or so of your time.