Review: Dawn of the Dead

As a zombie outbreak hits, two SWAT-type police guys (Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger) flee in a helicopter with two TV station employees (Gaylen Ross and David Emge), landing on the roof of a shopping centre. Keeping the zombie contingent at bay, they start to make a life of sorts for themselves inside the mall. And then some scavengers (led by Tom Savini) invade looking to take over. Richard France plays an ‘expert’ on TV talking about the zombies at the start of the film.

 

Even better than “Night of the Living Dead”, this 1978 George Romero (“Martin”, “Knightriders”) zombie flick is an apocalyptic classic. Even with its rather raw performances and low-budget, this is the greatest zombie movie ever made. It was all downhill after this, pretty much and in fact the slicker remake was pretty ineffectual. They got it right with this one already.

 

Although it’s a fairly long film, one of the best things here is that it hits the ground running. It sets the basic scenario up in pretty quick fashion and gets our protagonists to the shopping centre relatively quickly. Chaos, panic, confusion, conflict, stupidity, selfishness, ultra-violence: It’s all here, folks and from pretty early on. For what is a pretty unrealistic situation (zombies), Romero makes it convincing by understanding human nature. If something like this really were possible, it’d probably unfold something like this film. There’s some nice subtle touches throughout in showing human behaviour coping with sheer madness, such as our protagonists lying to someone about not having cigarettes. It’s a time for selfishness and self-preservation, even amongst the ‘good guys’.

 

Even in 2017 the violence is still surprisingly gory, but fake enough and over-the-top enough to not actually be offensive, I’d say. The makeup by Tom Savini is obviously crude, but what I think makes these zombies stand out is that there’s something individual amongst the shuffling masses, or at least idiosyncratic. It helps in letting you know that they used to be somebody. That’s not a detail that most zombie movies really seem to get. The consumerism= zombies satire probably works as well today as it did in the 70s (Check out the scene where they go to the bank to get some money…for what, though? It’s no longer necessary to them). I’m not as anti-consumerism as the film seems to be, with the zombies hanging out in a place that was apparently important to them when they were alive. However, there’s certainly something to it, though in today’s society perhaps it’d be something other than a shopping mall. Maybe we’d have an army of zombies constantly bumping into shit because they’re too busy playing with their phones. Wait, human beings already do that while they’re still alive. Oh shit, did I miss the start of the zombie apocalypse? In addition to the fun that the shopping centre location brings, I like the time given to strategy in dealing with not only the zombies, but also when a band of scavengers comes along to start a turf war. It’s actually pretty smart stuff for a film about brainless zombies. Those scavengers are key to me, because these bastards (led by Tom Savini himself) may just be worse than the zombies. I’m sorry but having a turf war in the midst of a zombie crisis is just stupidity…and sadly quite believable. The film’s most famous line ‘When there’s no more room in Hell, the Dead will walk the Earth’ seems to suggest far more evil zombies than the shambling, rather pathetic and human ones we get. Some of the humans in this seem far more worthy of being shot in the head, if we’re being honest here. I’m pretty sure I was meant to feel that way, too. The use of shopping mall muzak throughout is priceless, as is the idiot on the radio who points out that zombies and cannibals aren’t the same thing. I mean, talk about a small point of difference. I know only one of them is a revived corpse, but they both feed on living human beings. That’s pretty cannibalistic, don’t you think? The raw performances aren’t great, but Ken Foree definitely stands out as having presence and charisma. Honestly, the only issue for me is length. If it were shorn of about 5-10 minutes, this would be practically perfect. As is, it’s still great.

 

Must-see, and not just for horror movie fans, so long as you don’t have a weak stomach. If you see only one zombie film in your lifetime, well don’t. Watch “Night of the Living Dead” (which is stark and more serious in comparison), Ruben Fleischer’s “Zombieland” (which is pretty much a total comedy), and this film, as all three are terrific. 

 

Rating: A