Director of the DEAD

"Am I a horror fan? I think anyone who collects things like DEADWORLD comic books [is a fan]."

So there you have it. For all the admirers of George Romero's original DAWN OF THE DEAD who have feared and loathed the prospect of Universal Pictures remaking the 1978 gorefest, now it can be told: Zack Snyder, director of the new version, is a fan of the horror genre. But does that mean that he can make a good zombie movie?

For one thing, Snyder knows that, first and foremost, his zombies have to be taken seriously. "If there's a hole in it, the thing's bullsh-t. The whole movie's bullsh-t."

"Zombies... there's a sort of reverence that surrounds them," says Snyder with a laugh. "And that's cool, and I'm into not offending the zombie culture, if you will, but at the same time I wanted the zombies to be scary on their own [for a change]. Because I felt in order for the world to fall apart overnight, the zombies have to be, like, impossible to stop."

Obviously, the make-up design of the zombies was going to be essential to whether the film would be accepted or not by the sophisticated audiences of 2004. Sure, the original DAWN is a classic, but let's face it... the blood and guts of that film are pretty cheesy. That's not the case in this new film, which features state of the art make-up by David Anderson.

"We decided that there were going to be three [stages] that you see the zombies [in]," explains Snyder. "First day [zombies] are like fresh, they're like people that just died. And we just did a lot research to find out what that actually looks like. We try to be really true to reality in a lot of ways; I didn't try to stylize them as much as I could have. Part of the scary [aspect] of the early stage zombie is it takes a second to realize whether they are or aren't a zombie."

The man knows his undead, but he also acknowledges that as a fan of the original himself, he was cautious at first about taking on this film. And he also points out that this DAWN isn't really a remake of Romero's film anyway.

"Some of the

A horde of zombies can ruin your day, as the unlucky survivors in DAWN OF THE DEAD will find out.

© Universal Pictures

And while the director knows that some fans of the original will never be won over, he also is confident enough in his own tastes to know what works and doesn't work in an all-out zombie fest. Yeah, character, plot, and effects are all important. But they're not necessarily number one in a movie like this.

"If I'm coming to this movie, I want to see some zombie [action]," he says. "Let's fight some fking zombies!"