Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Also known as "Dawn of the Living Dead"
When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth
Starring: David Emge, Hen Foree, Scott H Reiniger, Gaylen Ross
Director: George A Romero
Running Time: 139 minutes
US MPAA rating: OpenUK BBFC rating: 18
Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller, War
On DVD George A Romero creates the world of the near future, where mankind is threatened by an outbreak of zombies - living dead who feed on the flesh of survivors, with one bite turning the victim into another zombie. In this hellish world, four people are thrown together by chance - two SWAT team members (Hen Foree and Scott H Reiniger) and TV station workers Stephen (David Emge) and Francine (Gaylen Ross). Together they decide to attempt an escape by stealing the station's helicopter.
Everywhere they go, there are more zombies. With refuelling becoming a problem, they search for somewhere safe where they can hold off the zombies. They finally stop at a large suburban shopping mall, where zombies follow the habits of a lifetime wandering mindlessly amongst the shops. They realise that if they can block off the entrances and kill off the zombies inside, the mall offers everything they need to survive for an extended period. However, there are more than zombies to contend with, as looters too recognise the mall as a resource.
This is one of the best-loved and most-definitive films of the zombie genre. The zombies are at once believable, frightening, funny and objects of pathos. Placing them in the oh-so-familiar setting of the mall with its fountains, escalators and 'muzak' is humorous, gruesome and a little ironic - a mockery of suburban America. All the main players produce strong comic-book style characters, some more likeable than others, but all with their redeeming qualities. The arrival of the biker raiders offers an interesting counterpoint that demonstrates that some humans can be even worse than zombies. The director's cut DVD is the full uncut version, which restores nearly a quarter-of-an-hour's worth of footage to the theatrical release.
DVD Extras: Updated for new DVD Release (2004/10/25) And now, hot off the press comes the definitive DVD version from Arrow Films/Fremantle Home Entertainment, featuring anamorphic 16:9 widescreen presentation of the complete director's cut; choice of Dolby 5.1/Dolby 2.0; 'The Dead Will Walk' (75min), an all-new documentary on the film's genesis, production and impact, including extensive interviews with just about everyone involved in the project, lots of juicy anecdotes, lines like "I'm getting' this machete across my skull, I'm getting' kicked across the floor, and I'm having the time of my life", and a tantalizing glimpse at the front page of Romero's script for the fourth, as yet unmade, film, apparently entitled 'Dead Reckoning'. There are also two separate all-new commentaries (both affably moderated by Perry Martin) that for once do not repeat one another. The first, by George A. Romero, his wife and assistant director Chris Romero (née Forrest) and Tom Savini, reveals that almost all the cast were friends, family or local Pittsburgh volunteers (even the mall was owned by personal friends of Romero), that the original script had a far bleaker ending (everybody dies) which was changed during the shoot because the film was "too much fun" for it, and that the fourth film, should it ever get made, is a larger-scale affair set in a down-town area, with lots of action sequences and an overarching theme of "ignoring the problem". The second commentary, by producer Richard P. Rubinstein, details the film's unbelievably low budget (under half a million dollars), its censorship history (the Bristish Board of Film Classification wanted half an hour cut from Dario Argento's shorter 'European' version of the film but only one minute cut from Romero's far longer version, which contextualised and ironised all the violence), Rubinstein's involvement with the 'Dawn of the Dead' remake, and his dislike of piracy and property theft. On top of all this, there is a photo gallery; bios of stars Gaylen Ross, David Emge, Ken Forre and Scott H. Reiniger, as well as Romero; trailers from the US and Germany ("es gibt keinen härteren Film"); radio spots; a selection of early reviews (including ones by Stephen King and Roger Ebert, although you will need to use 'zoom' to read the latter); and hilariously arresting animated menus.
Now all we need is a Collector's Edition that also includes Dario Argento's cut of the film, 'Zombie', which launched a thousand Italian imitations.
It's Got: Plenty of gore combined with laughs.
It Needs: Slightly more use of the character of Francine.
Alternatives: Day of the Dead, From Dusk Till Dawn, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead (2004).
Summary: A fine and definitive example of the zombie genre that has continued to hold up well in spite of its age.
Review by Andrea Chee
Review Date: 30th April 2003
External Links
Official Web Site
Dawn of the Dead at the IMDB
Comments4 Comments |
| I recently saw Dawn of the Dead and I believe that it is the best "Horror" movie I have ever seen so I purchased the directors cut edition DVD. I believe that your review is fair and very accurate and I would like to congratulate you on this. |
| Comment by:- Luke Skelding | | 07 July 2004 | ip: logged |
| The most discusting movie ever made |
| Comment by:- Emily | | 30 July 2004 | ip: logged |
| English is not my native language, so please be more forgiving with my english than I am with 'Dawn of the Dead'... This movie is 'cult' and therefore, because it is 'cult', you just can't give it a caning, but before I saw it I only found reviews like the one above and then was really disappointed by the movie. Despite the perhaps great idea of zombies in a shopping mall with its ironic view on modern society's mindless consumption, the movie almost completely fails. There is no suspense, a lot of, let's say, kind of not really good acting and a wanna-be supersupersupercool synthesizer-soundtrack, that may affect you if you're sixteen and in the right mood, but elsewise is just laughable. In fact, the best thing to do is being sixteen and watching this as a 'forbidden' movie with friends and a lot of popcorn while your parents are not at home. And get me right, there is nothing wrong with being sixteen and having fun this way. What I want to say is, there is no way to take this movie serious, and when you're a bit older and there is no one really there to disallow watching an 'oh so horrible' movie like this, it looses a lot of its 'weight'. Of course, the movie is 'cult' and maybe was a very 'different' movie at its time, but it's not a well-made movie, not today, not in 1979, not even as low-budget production or as independent film. Nevertheless, the movie was quite successful at its time, mostly due to its till then unknown gore-level. Some of the effects were certainly quite shocking in 1979. Very often there is only a lot of blood splattered on walls, especially as zombies are shot in the head one by one (from safe distance, don't expect it to be a nerve-wracking hell of a fight...), but there are a few effects that come quite unexpected, and some of them are quite convincing (and violent), even by today's standards. Others, perhaps most of them, are not, but one should never forget that 'Dawn of the Dead' is a low budget production shot in the late seventies. Tom Savini, who was responsible for the special effects, was quite creative in some of these scenes without being able to spend a lot of money. But regarding the 'general' zombie make-up, smurfblue paint must have been on sale but surely still was too expensive to buy enough of it, so most of the zombies are just 'blue in the face' having normal teint at hands and arms. But I have to admit, this queer make-up adds to the 'cult'-factor of the movie (if you don't take it too serious, of course). The complete story of the film could be told in a few sentences without having to omit anything and a long part focuses on the living in the then safe shopping mall with the anyway not very frightening zombies outside. The movie therefore often is quite lengthy, especially without utilizing special lighting or creative camera work to contribute to atmosphere or something while nothing else is happening. I only remember one scene being filmed quite nice with Stephen sitting on a couch in the living room, wich of course, was not a real living room at all, but an arrangement (out of many) in a furniture store. But that was it. The main characters, although living for at least a few weeks in the shopping mall, do not really evolve at all. Ok, wrong, some people in this movie clearly evolve and get their faces, if not painted blue, made up somehow... But there are no emotional upheavals, nothing of this kind. Our heroes are so tough and cool (almost as wanna-be cool as the soundtrack, if you know what I mean)! I don't think, that 'big emotions' are necessarily needed, a desolate setting and cold acting can do as well, as it was 1971 in 'Clockwork Orange', for example. You might, of course, argue that one can't compare these two movies, but 'Dawn of the Dead' is often praised as a very profound, sociocritical movie. 'Clockwork Orange' was sociocritical and did its job, 'Dawn of the Dead' does not, it's just to laughable to have any real impact. And for fans of 'Braindead', 'Undead', 'Return of the Living Dead' and other fun-to-watch zombie movies, and though Romero put some black humour here and there, 'Dawn of the Dead' is to lengthy, boring and bloodless and the humour, if there, is often too flat and too stupid. That 'Dawn of the Dead' fails is not necessarily due to the low budget. As a 'serious' zombie movie, Romero's first one, 'Night of the Living Dead', was a lot better while costing much less. From today's point of view there certainly is no 'gore' in 'Night of the Living Dead' (although in the sixties people were really upset because of its 'gore'-level), but in its original version it has a soundtrack that helps building a tense atmosphere, there are some nice camera angles and an atmospheric lighting of the set, and despite being a bit cheesy here and there, the acting is not bad. This one's definitely the real classic, not 'Dawn of the Dead'. So, now, when thinking it over, 'Dawn of the Dead' was really shocking in only one way: How a director, who proved to be talented and being ahead of his time with 'Night of the Living Dead', could make such a dull thing as 'Dawn of the Dead'. Of course, the basic idea was good and he wanted it to be as shocking as it could be with its explicit gore effects, but something went completely wrong. Even if you ignore the stupid soundtrack, not to mention that any punch during fistfights is acoustically represented by a synthesizer-snaredrum sound (you know, the way it is in Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movies), it does not work. And if you have another opinion concerning this movie and perhaps were about sixteen when you saw it the last time, please, first watch it again before throwing things at me. Nevertheless, 'Dawn of the Dead' is part of movie history and whenever you see a film with those classic zombies, you know, those who move like sleepwalkers while constantly moaning and acting almost completely brainless, it was, as far as I know (and ignoring Vampira in 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' in the fifties), Romero who invented them in 'Night of the Living Dead' and made them become the beloved cliché in 'Dawn of the Dead', hobbling with their hands stretched out in front of them. Therefore I can recommend this film for this reason, but only for this reason... |
| Comment by:- Sven | | 28 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| it was really good but still not scary enough 4 me |
| Comment by:- emma | | 18 November 2004 | ip: logged |
