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| The iconic poster for George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead |
Dawn of the Dead is perhaps the best zombie movie ever made; coming from the grandmaster of the zombie horror sub-genre, New York-born George A. Romero (Creepshow (1982)), Dawn is the crazy sequel to his perennial classic of all zombie movies, Night of the Living Dead (1968). But whereas Night is a truly scary, strange, creepy and claustrophobic horror film in B/W, Dawn is a dramatically different vision; a satirical action gore zombie feast in blazing colors with special effects bouncing off the walls!
The plot centers on two weather journalists and two soldiers that escape a violent mayhem in an apocalyptic, zombie-infested world in a helicopter and decide to isolate themselves in a shopping mall.
Dawn doesn't try to hide its barbaric colors and was released unrated in the U.S., because it was set to get a (commercially lethal) X-rating: Within 10 minutes, you've got an explicit (and spectacular) head-exploding scene; within 30 minutes, zombie kids are being terminated. The film's incredible success despite these risk factors is truly remarkable.
Dawn is too wild and action-packed to ever become truly scary, though, but it seems that that was also Romero's intentions: Arguing about the color of the blood in the film with its special effects designer Tom Savini (Martin (1976)), (who also plays a big part in the film as a biker gang leader and must be applauded at length for Dawn's mind-boggling and extremely voluminous special effects), Romero stuck with the unnaturally bright red color seen in the film, as he liked the comic book-like effect it produced.
Dawn's greatness comes also from the strength of the symbolic meanings that can be interpreted from Romero's juicy script and the irresistible visuals: The film is full of double meanings and what seems like hidden commentary or critique of modern America:
Facing crisis, our quartet chose to isolate themselves with wealth and a hankering for uncontrolled consumerism; "We've got everything we need here!", the weak weatherman points out to persuade his doubting, pregnant girlfriend that the mall is the place to be. But the consumerist life is empty and devoid of values and substance, which she later realizes, saying "What have we done?!?" Then, when outsiders threaten to break into their isolated 'paradise' to get their part of the wealth of resources in there as well, the males of our group respond with a plan to gate themselves in, "They won't know that we're here", one of them rationalizes. That plan of course misfires, and complete anarchy and depravity breaks out, as the outsiders lacking means break the borders and ravage and steal all that they can in the now plundered and wrecked mall micro-world. - The zombies might be taken as symbols of the mindless consumer people of modern society, or as simply the death that faces the faithless, amoral live people we get to know; future-set to forever stumble around in an empty, consumerist Purgatory.
That is merely my reading of the inspiring Dawn of the Dead. Watch it to develop your own ideas about its meanings.
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| The eye-popping head-exploding scene from the beginning of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead |
The details:
I base this review on the 139 minutes long director's cut, initial edition that Romero premiered at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, (several shorter versions are also available.) This length for a zombie movie is unheard of and crazy in itself. But Romero's material can bear it, as he's got so much great footage and four very well-acting leads as well as tons of great zombies.
Some say that it's a slow movie; I think it takes its time and gives the audience time to enjoy it and get into its world. I have watched it numerous times and now always feel a strong nostalgia, whenever I put it on; my old zombie best friend ...
It's a great home-watch: Its length demands several food- and snack-gathering kitchen breaks, (for those with gore-trained tummys), and it's also paramount to be able to talk and howl if need be while watching it. The film is most enjoyable as a very interactive experience like that.
The main hero is played greatly by Ken Foree (From Beyond (1986)), and like its franchise predecessor, which also had a black male hero, who in the end SPOILER died as a martyr of an implied racist society, Dawn also makes us root for a black male hero, which isn't a stereotype. Here, we get SPOILER a semi-romantic (interracial!) ending, which also cements the film's forward-thinking, wild nature.
To top it all off, Dawn of the Dead is robed in a phenomenal Italian score by Goblin (Deep Red (1975)) and horror master Dario Argento (Phenomena (1985)), who also helped to finance, distribute and conceive this masterpiece.
Romero's zombie movie series continues in the amazing Day of the Dead (1985), which is a third completely different zombie-apocalyptic vision, the series' darkest, corniest and most disgusting. From then on, Romero has added three recent titles, Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009), all of which do not hold up to the old classics.
Watch the original trailer here
Cost: 0.65 mil. $
Box office: 55 mil. $
= Mega-hit
What do you think of Dawn of the Dead?
And George A. Romero's other zombie films?
Any other zombie films that are as solid as these?
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