This does create a sense of unease, as we’re still supposed to root for the human protagonists, even as they slice and dice their way through primitive hoards that are capable of experiencing emotion.

Ward and his team travel into the ruins of Sin City where they learn of a special breed of ‘Alpha’ zombie – led by one called Zeus who has a cape and rides a zombie horse – which are capable of thought, organisation, forming bonds and using tools. That’s a lot of characters to keep track of, though Snyder achieved a good balance in Dawn of the Dead, which ran at 100 minutes and managed to convince us to care about at least a few of the unfortunate mallrats. They’re joined by two villains: Martin (Garret Dillahunt), Tanaka’s Head of Security, and Burt Cummings (Theo Rossi), a sadistic guard from the refugee camp. There’s Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), a former philosopher turned soldier Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), a friend of Ward’s Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighofer), an eccentric German safecracker Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro), a pilot Mikey Guzman (Raul Castillo), a sharp-shooter with a YouTube channel where he kills zombies and Lily (Nora Arnezeder), who has a reputation for getting people in and out of the walled city. Seeing the money as an opportunity to help his estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell), who works at a nearby refugee camp for displaced Vegas citizens, Ward assembles a crack team at the behest of billionaire casino owner Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada). One small hitch: the city has been walled off, as it’s become overrun with the undead. This description could just as easily apply to Snyder’s new zombie shoot ’em up, Army of the Dead, in which a team of mercenaries led by Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) attempt to rob a Las Vegas casino to the tune of $200 million. I’m not terrified of things running at me it’s like Space Invaders. The first 15, 20 minutes were terrific, but it sort of lost its reason for being. Romero himself was a little more critical: “It was better than I expected.

Zack Snyder’s film (written by James Gunn) satirised the genre, turned the dial way up on gore, and seemed to mark the arrival of a major new directing talent. Way back in 2004, long before anyone had ever uttered the words ‘Snyder Cut’, a virtually unknown filmmaker impressed audiences with his zippy remake of George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead – no small feat, given how highly regarded the original is. A team of mercenaries with nothing to lose are hired for the heist of a lifetime in zombie-infested Las Vegas.

Casino heist zombie movie