History Film / DawnOfTheDead2004

** The group never once thought to share crucial information about the zombies with Andy, not even when performing the risky move with the dog. [[spoiler: This ultimately gets him infected]].

* SexSignalsDeath: [[spoiler:Luis, Monica and Steve all have sex on-screen and all die horrible deaths. Averted with Ana, who is one of the survivors, despite having sex with Luis]] in the opening - which is also the reason why they've missed an emergency broadcast.

* StraightGay: Glen. In the theatrical version, the only hint that he is gay is him trying on shoes during the montage of time passing in the mall, although the directors cut includes a scene where it's outright stated.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The remaining survivors escape on Steve's yacht. However, all the other characters are dead and Michael is forced to kill himself after he's infected. And then there's the stinger...]]

* ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler:The survivors manage to escape to one of the islands where they hope they can find sanctuary away from the zombies. Too bad TheStinger reveals that island is also lousy with zombies!]]

* BoomHeadshot: A surefire way to kill zombies is to shoot them in the head.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:C.J. stays behind to draw away the zombies and detonate the bus to wipe out a good number of them. Not out of choice, since his only way to escape was jammed]].

* TheLeader: The one who takes the reins here most often is Michael as a gun-trained and tactically minded police officer, but Ana and Michael also show some leadership at various points.

-> ''"Hell is overflowing, and Satan is sending his dead to us. Why? Because you have sex out of wedlock. You kill unborn children. You have man-on-man relations. Same-sex marriage. How do you think your god will judge you? Well, friends, now we know. When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth."''

-> ''"When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth."''

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The infectious agent that’s causing the dead to reanimate and eat the living is implied in some scenes and in Gunn’s script to be supernatural in origin. However, it’s for the most part ambiguous, as there are also implications of the disease indeed being a reanimating pathogen. In the [[DeletedScene deleted scenes]] for the movie, it's stated that it's infected blood, not bites, that turn people, like in its contemporary Film/28DaysLater. There's remnants of that plot point in the film, most notably with the focus on Kenneth's injury during his scuffle with the infected Ben Cozine, but it's only stated to transfer via bite in the final product.

%%* AbortedArc: After establishing that infected blood is the culprit in turning people into zombies, Ana is clearly seen washing infected blood off of her hands in a mall water feature. Later, Kenneth falls into this water, and the movie even makes a point of emphasizing an injury to Kenneth that cuts open his arm in the infected water. Despite this, nothing further comes of this incident and [[spoiler: Kenneth does not turn into a zombie]]. This actually might be a remnant of the original script for the remake, where the zombie plague would have had supernatural origins rather than virological ones. These two scenes would then have been fitting as evidence of dismissing it as a virus and open up for other possibilities behind the zombie plague.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The infectious agent that’s causing the dead to reanimate and eat the living is implied in some scenes and in Gunn’s script to be supernatural in origin. However, it’s for the most part ambiguous, as there are also implications of the disease indeed being a reanimating pathogen.

* AbortedArc: After establishing that infected blood is the culprit in turning people into zombies, Ana is clearly seen washing infected blood off of her hands in a mall water feature. Later, Kenneth falls into this water, and the movie even makes a point of emphasizing an injury to Kenneth that cuts open his arm in the infected water. Despite this, nothing further comes of this incident and [[spoiler: Kenneth does not turn into a zombie]]. This actually might be a remnant of the original script for the remake, where the zombie plague would have had supernatural origins rather than virological ones. These two scenes would then have been fitting as evidence of dismissing it as a virus and open up for other possibilities behind the zombie plague.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The infectious agent that’s causing the dead to reanimate and eat the living is implied in some scenes and in Gunn’s script to be supernatural in origin, such as Kenneth not getting sick even after he fell in a water fountain, was wounded at the time and after Ana was washing her blood-covered hands in said fountain. However, it’s for the most part ambiguous, as there are also implications of the disease indeed being a reanimating pathogen after all and he might have simply got very lucky.

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Steve]] for being a cowardly, callous and constant snarker to the end. If his character isn't enough, his actions directly and indirecly lead to death of most of the group, him included.

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Steve]] for being a cowardly, callous and constant snarker to the end.

* CharacterDevelopment: C.J. goes from {{Jerkass}} mall cop to working together with the others for survival once he’s cut off from his usual conservative news sources.

* CombatMedic: Ana, an RN, is able to kick ass and survive until the end (and possibly beyond it, given the ambiguity of the ending).

* DamselInDistress: Subverted with Ana, who definitely holds her own compared to the other women. And played absolutely straight with Nicole.

* DeathByAmbulance: The heroine's gun-toting neighbor is run down by a passing ambulance.

* DownerBeginning: The zombies literally come bursting into the heroine's bedroom within ten minutes of the start of the film, her neighbor's daughter and her husband are the first victims and then become attackers.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler: When Michael is bitten, he assists the group as long as he can, sets them offshore while admiring the sunrise before calmly euthanising himself via headshot.]]

* YourHeadASplode: Many zombies, but notably [[spoiler:Andy's death]].

%% SexSignalsDeath: [[spoiler:Luis, Monica and Steve. Averted with Ana, who is one of the survivors.]]

* DeathBySex: [[spoiler:Luis, Monica and Steve. Averted with Ana, who is one of the survivors.]]

Ana, a Milwaukee nurse, finishes a long shift at her hospital where -- along with other bits of {{Foreshadowing}} -- she discusses [[ZombieInfectee a patient who was bitten in a bar fight]]. After work, she chats briefly with a cute neighbor child, then returns to her suburban home and her waiting husband. The next morning, she wakes up to find her zombified young neighbor in her house; the girl kills her husband, who then rises as a zombie and comes after Ana. Ana escapes in her car, only to learn that, overnight, the town has fallen into [[ZombieApocalypse chaos]]. A living human attempts to carjack her vehicle, causing her to panic, drive off the road, crash into a tree, and knock herself unconscious. When she awakens, she meets up with a police officer by the name of Kenneth, and then a small group of survivors more-or-less led by jack-of-all-trades Michael. They all break into a nearby shopping mall, where they are confronted by a trio of mall security guards, led by the surly C.J. Via binoculars and dry-erase boards, they also "meet" gun-store owner Andy, who is stranded alone in his shop across the mall's zombie-infested parking lot. The guards are eventually disarmed, and some more survivors are let into the mall. For a while, the group wallows in the mall's materialism, but the situation finally deteriorates to the point where the group decides to reinforce a pair of parking shuttles, drive to the local marina and escape out to an island on Lake Michigan.

Ana, a Milwaukee nurse, finishes a long shift at her hospital where -- along with other bits of {{Foreshadowing}} -- she discusses [[ZombieInfectee a patient who was bitten in a bar fight]]. After work, she chats briefly with a cute neighbor child, then returns to her suburban home and her waiting husband. The next morning, she wakes up to find her zombified young neighbor in her house; the girl kills her husband, who then rises a zombie and comes after Ana. Ana escapes in her car, only to learn that, overnight, the town has fallen into [[ZombieApocalypse chaos]]. A living human attempts to carjack her vehicle, causing her to panic, drive off the road, crash into a tree, and knock herself unconscious. When she awakens, she meets up with a police officer by the name of Kenneth, and then a small group of survivors more-or-less led by jack-of-all-trades Michael. They all break into a nearby shopping mall, where they are confronted by a trio of mall security guards, led by the surly C.J. Via binoculars and dry-erase boards, they also "meet" gun-store owner Andy, who is stranded alone in his shop across the mall's zombie-infested parking lot. The guards are eventually disarmed, and some more survivors are let into the mall. For a while, the group wallows in the mall's materialism, but the situation finally deteriorates to the point where the group decides to reinforce a pair of parking shuttles, drive to the local marina and escape out to an island on Lake Michigan.

* [[RussianGuySuffersMost Russian Woman Suffers Most]]: Luda is infected, but Andre hides it from the others, denying

* [[RussianGuySuffersMost Russian Woman Suffers Most]]: Luda is infected, but Andre hides it from the others, denying her the chance for a mercy kill. After she dies and turns, she gives birth to a [[{{Pun}} Zombaby]].
* RightForTheWrongReasons: The group comes up with a plan to use the dog to deliver food to Andy to prevent him starving to death; theorising out of nowhere that the zombies would have no interest in the dog because they are all cannibals. While the dog is able to successfully sneak through the massive horde of zombies its more likely due to the fact the zombies have severely damaged eyesight (as seen with the burst blood vessels), as well as having NoObjectPermanence. [[spoiler: And the zombies do get inside of Andy's shop, because they still managed to connect the dots when a trapdoor for the dog gets opened and they were standing right next to it]].

* JerkToNiceGuyPlot: C.J. undergoes this. At first, he tried to turn away 5 survivors, but then agreed to let them in by locking them up. Then, he threatens to shoot them when they try to rescue a second wave of survivors, but he is subdued and gets locked up himself before being released to help restore power to the mall. [[spoiler: Ultimately in the end he makes the HeroicSacrifice to help the few survivors get onto a boat blowing up the zombies, but also perishes in the ensuing explosion]].

* WeaksauceWeakness: The zombies are fast, show at least minimal signs of intelligence, never stop in their pursuit, can be attracted by sight or sound and come in huge numbers... but also have no NoObjectPermanence and thus in favourable conditions can be easily tricked.

* WeaksauceWeakness: The zombies are fast, show at least minimal signs of intelligence, never stop at their pursuit, can be attracted by sight or sound and come in huge numbers... but also have no NoObjectPermanence and thus in favourable conditions can be easily tricked.

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: The zombies in this version not only overwhelm victims through sheer numbers, they are capable of running and jumping with no sign of exhaustion, and once they target a living person, they will attack and keep up the pursuit until they or their target are dead, or another target of opportunity appears, making them ''much'' more dangerous than the shambling zombies of the original. The slight standoff they have when Kenneth on the stairs near the end, with them slowly approaching and seeming to try and find a way round him, also implies they at least have some thinking ability and maybe slight self-preservation instincts, being closer to animalistic than the mindless wandering flesh eaters of the originals. Moreover, their berserker rage, unrelenting drive to infect, and complete disinterest in any other potential food sources like animals seem to imply an almost programmed directive to seek and destroy humans exclusively. [[TheScourgeOfGod Hmm...]]

* LeaderWannabe: Initially, C.J. is trying to be the one calling shots, but nobody sans Bart takes him seriously [[spoiler: and he quickly ends up subdued and locked up by the rest of the group]]. Averted with Michael, who never aims for the position of leader, but is giving sound suggestions to people around and never makes them more than suggestions.

* LeaderWannabe: Initially, C.J. is trying to be the one calling shots, but nobody sans Bart takes him serious and [[spoiler: he quickly ends up subdued and locked up by the rest of the group]]. Averted with Michael, who never aims for the position of leader, but is giving sound suggestions to people around and never makes them more than suggestions.