10 minutes of Terror-Dawn of the Dead 2004

Wow! Its been forever since I've done a 10 minutes of terror. This is mostly due to me having trouble finding clips online to show on the blog. Alas, the 28 Weeks Later clip has been torn from youtube...stupid youtube.
Anyways, I managed to find this clip out of sheer dumb luck. I'm a very big fan of the Dawn of the Dead remake. While I do believe it lacks the depth and social commentary of the original Dawn of the Dead, it more than makes up for it with gore, terror, and probably one of the best first 10 minutes of a zombie film ever.

I'm sure most of you know this scene all too well. Its definitely my favorite part of the film. For those who never saw it, or just want to re-visit it, here's the clip!

Unfortunately its not embedable.

All done? Back?
Okay.
Now that 10 minutes there are my own personal nightmare. Seriously. I DO have nightmares like this. This is why the zombie Apocalypse scares the Hell out of me. Waking up to your loved one now a monster, your neighbors wanting to kill you, and complete chaos? The idea makes my stomach drop.

What I love about this sequence is how extremely normal it all starts. It was only a few hours before when Anna was planning her weekend and enjoying some TV with her husband. Its all shot in this very sleepy, quiet way. The lighting is warm and welcoming. The background music is soft or nonexsistant. The actors speak quietly. Everything about the pre-zombie world is inviting us to relax and feel comforted.
That normalcy is what makes the chaos all the more jarring. When Lewis is bitten, the light is harsher, the focus sharper, the cuts much quicker. Also, that bright red blood against her white shirt, the white walls of the bathroom and the "domestic" beige of the bedroom is not only stunning, but another visual wake up call that things are REALLY bad.
I'd have to say my favorite shot in the whole sequence is Anna throwing herself backwards into the bathtub. There's just a moment of stunned silence as she sits there before the insanity begins again.

I really believe the reason why Dawn of the Dead 2004 gives me such a eerie feeling is because I watched it during the very devastating southern California fires. The entire city was in flames and no one was advised to leave their house. I remember the skies were orange and smokey for weeks. It was like the zombie Apocalypse only lacking zombies. For some reason, sharing that sense of dread with the characters in this film was almost comforting.

Also, for a bonus, Johnny, from Freddy In Space has a new fun blog called Win Free Horror Shit in which you can...well...win free horror shit. He posts several contests you can enter so if you want to try your hand in winning stuff, check the blog out!