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When there’s no more room for original ideas, remakes will play in theaters. Actually, that’s a bit unfair. This big budget remake of George Romero’s low budget independent 1978 classic “Dawn of the Dead” demonstrates that being undead is very, very chic. Although director Zack Synder is remaking a classic film, he doesn’t show any reverence for the original; he just dives right in and makes the film his own. That’s a good thing folks. With a screenplay by James Gunn (“Scooby Doo”), Synder recreates the classic original and pays homage to it while hewing to a road not taken by Romero. While the basic plot is the same, there are important differences that make this zombie movie every bit the equal of the original (and better than “Resident Evil” and its ilk). ***

A major viral outbreak brings the dead back to life. Those bitten by the dead die and return as flesh eating zombies with no other purpose in life than to binge (they don’t need to purge, after all, they don’t worry what they look like—they’re dead). Survivors lead by Kenneth (Ving Rhames) and Ana (Sarah Polley) take refugee in a Milwaukee shopping mall. The zombies being former consumers figure there’s still stuff to consume there and pursue them. With some truly memorable scenes and a wicked sense of humor, Synder, Gunn and the cast take to the material like, well, starved zombies. There’s much chewing of the scenery as well as people in this splendid spirited remake which shows directors how to both make a film that stands on its own and also references the original that inspired it. ---

This unrated director’s cut has 9 minutes of additional footage some of it in the form of gore but some of it just extended scenes cut as part of arbitration with the ratings board. What’s best, though, are some of the features included all the footage shot for the TV updates that the cast and the viewers saw in the film. Additionally, we get to see the unedited version of the video footage shot by survivor Andy. It’s an example of shooting footage with only the DVD release in mind as most of this would have been cut for the theatrical version anyway. We also have deleted scenes of the undead and soon to be dying. It’s clear why these scenes would have been cut—they don’t add anything substantial to the narrative of the film and even those minor scenes between the actors don’t add all that much to the depth of the characters. “Splitting Headaches” is not for the faint of heart. It demonstrates how the sequences involving the exploding heads was created with chilling, gross and realistic results. “Raising the Living Dead” has footage of the most original of the zombies killed in the movie. Since I’m sure the living dead don’t want to be called zombies, it’s has the politically correct title necessary for this election year (after all, George W. and J.F.Kerry need all the votes they can get!). The latter two are available only on the unrated director’s cut of the movie so if you want these features choose…wisely. ---