hard days shite.

Day of The Dead (2008)
Dir: Steve Miner.
Cast: Nick Cannon, Mena Suvari, Christa Campbell, Michael Welch, AnnaLynne McCord, Stark Sands, Matt Rippy, Ian McNeice, Robert Rais, Linda Marlowe and Ving Rhames.

Sorry mate, 'D' day was back in '85
when they released the original.

Somewhere in sunny Colorado, a group of hot 'n' horny (but none nude) 'teens' are making out in an abandoned warehouse but when one of them develops a nosebleed and snotters a big red bogie on his dates chest they all decide to go home.

Annoyed at having her cleavage messed up, the slutty/punky one decides to walk home thru' the woods alone....

Meanwhile bald badass mofo Captain Rhodes (Rhames, currently king of the Romero remake) and his tiny second in command Sarah (Suvari) are trying to stop folk leaving town, Rhodes by shouting "Halt mutha fuckah" at everyone and Sarah by smiling wetly and pointing them in the direction of the hospital.

You see, it appears that a scary nosebleed virus has hit town and the army are trying to contain it by putting up roadblocks, dishing out tissues and telling everyone to sit with their heads tilted back.

A bald bad ass mother fuckin'
son of a bitch yesterday.

Wise crackin' Private Salazar (Cannon) is drafted in to help his army buds (and from his performance, put back the quality of well written black characters by about 30 years) as is Private Bud Crane (Sands) a veggie geek with a crush on Sarah.

Turns out that Sarah is more concerned about her ailing mum than helping folk get medical assistance so she decides to commandeer a jeep (with Bud along for the ride and a for a wee bit of character building chat) to head home and get her to the hospital.

Arriving home she finds her big chinned brother Trevor (Welch) making out on the sofa with the interestingly haired (yet pointed faced) Nina (McCord). Yup that's right, they were two of those 'teens' at the films beginning (will the location of the deserted warehouse become important later?) and to top it all it seems that brother and sis have 'issues', which involves the pair huffing and tutting for five minutes whilst their mum coughs a lot in the upstairs bedroom.

Bud suggests that they should maybe deal with their anger issues later and bundles everyone into the Jeep for the trip to the outpatients where they find an even grumpier Rhodes (and scarily an even more jive-talking Salazar) stomping about and cussing at the mob of ill people slumped in their seats holding hankies up to their noses.

McCord: Interesting hair, crap top.

Without warning (and in an embarrassing frenzy of shite CGI and squelching noises) the nosebleed victims suddenly stop breathing, very quickly obtain joke show quality Halloween masks and transmute into zombies!

Laugh and indeed now.

But not just any old zombies oh no, these beasts can 'run' really fast (thanks to cranking up the camera speed-a trick not seen since The Keystone Cops), drive cars, shoot guns and hang off the ceiling (in what looks like a tribute to the old Spectrum game Manic Miner if the FX are anything to go by) plus if that's not enough they even dissolve into crappy CG dust when killed!

We are so lucky to have this film aren't we?

Mena moody.

Obviously it's all a bit fraught in the hospital what with all the zombies, Rhodes shouting "Mutha fuckah" at everyone (and everything), Sarah looking confused (as if Mena is thinking how the hell did I go from American Beauty to this) whilst Salazar does that hip-hop hand thing a lot and Bud just looks on in a daze (at least he doesn't have a career to ruin). The appearance of the mysterious Dr. Logan (Rippy-the other Captain Jack in Torchwood and a man I recognised as having once chatted to me about Pee Wee Herman when he was a member of The Reduced Shakespeare Company) prompts everyone to barricade themselves into a cupboard, but not before Rhodes is overcome by a horde of the undead.

Oh no! It's the Jehovah's!

They somehow end up in a cellar (with windows) where Sarah remembers that Rhodes still has the car keys, so she volunteers to lead them back to the cupboard to retrieve them. Unfortunately Rhodes re-animates and bites Bud before Logan steals a car and leaves them to it.

Luckily our hapless band manage escape in Rhodes Jeep (after a rather lackluster fight against the cast of Michael Jackson's Thriller video).

Meanwhile Trev and Nina have also escaped from the hospital and are currently dodging zombies, cars and stuff whilst looking for a place to hide. As luck would have it portly town DJ Paul (McNeice) is still broadcasting and nicely lets them into the studio (on the condition that they're not zombies of course) where they also find the shot to fuck Mr and Mrs. Leitner (Rais and Campbell-the classy star of 2001 Maniacs and Kraken amongst others) who spend their time coughing on the sofa and shouting "It's not the virus it's my allergies!"

Campbell: allergies.

As chaos and bad editing rage all around them, Sarah, Salazar and Bud drive to the nearest gun shop to get 'tooled up' (as I think the youngsters say) and think of a way to escape from town (and hopefully their contracts).

The Living Daylights of the Dead.

Heading back to the car Sarah is hit by a double-whammy of a surprise....firstly she hears her brother broadcasting (well begging and whining like a small girl) for help from the radio station and then turns round to see that Bud has become a zombie!

It's a bit of good luck then that he was vegetarian when he was alive (see? it was important) because he's refusing to eat his pals and is content to sitting in the back of the Jeep making doe eyes at Sarah.

Aaaaahhh.....sweet.

Come to think of it tho' there's hardly enough meat on Mena Suvari to make it worth his while.

Holby Christmas party, 1987.

Anyway, they rescue Trev and Nina (but not before Mrs. Leitner has gone loco and eaten her hubbie and Paul) and head towards the town border (it's a scientific fact that man made viruses can't cross city council lines). The plan gets thrown to the wind tho' when a zombie headbuts the windscreen causing them to hit a tree.

There only hope of refuge now? the old abandoned building from the movies beginning.

As it happens it turns out to be an old missile silo and secret research lab headed up by Logan. It appears that he's been experimenting with a way of shutting down enemy combatants nervous systems (he could show them this shite) but has accidentally made zombies instead.

The bad man.

Suvari: meat free.

Will our brave band escape or will the zombies take over the world?

Honestly I really didn't care.

This is usually the point where I wax lyrical about the direction, acting etc. but in the case of Day of The Dead I really can't be arsed, the film is that bad.

For some reason best know to Steve Miner and his cronies they've taken the title and character names from Romero's original and bolted them onto a poverty row remake of Nightmare City. Unfortunately it's nowhere near as entertaining as that Umberto Lenzi classic, where as that movie was so shockingly inept it crossed that blurry line into genius Day of the Dead is quite frankly the movie equivalent of weeping anal warts.

Unsuitable for Miners?

Yup, it really is that bad.

And the DVD cover is shit too.

I would say avoid this movie like the plague but to be honest I'd rather ask that if you see it on sale anywhere just torch the copies, you'd be doing everyone a favour.

God, films like this depress the hell out of me.