31 Days of Horror: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

“They’re us, that’s all, when there’s no more room in hell.”

Filmology Rating: 3.25 out of 4

'Dawn of the Dead' from 1978 is widely considered to be the best zombie film ever. Not the Zack Snyder 2004 remake. 

Zombies exist. Four people take up residence in a mall. That's the plot. 

Controlled chaos is the best way to describe this film. But when one mentions that this the best zombie film ever, most will compare it 'World War Z' or 'Train to Busan.' It is not like those films at all. 'Dawn of the Dead' has a very unconventional structure in that it doesn't follow a traditional narrative as one would expect. 

There is no story to this film either and usually that is problematic, but it works in that post-apocalyptic way where you would go, "Now what?" And that's the entire structure and motivation of everyone in this film. 

The only real characters of importantance in the film are the four leads- David Emge plays Stephen, Ken Foree (Peter), Scott Reiniger (Roger), and Gaylen Ross (Francine). Stephen, Peter, Roger, and Francine.  Peter and Roger are SWAT officers, Stephen is a helicopter pilot, and Francine is Roger's girlfriend who works at the news station. In the opening scene, Francine and Stephen are at the news station where we're informed right away that zombies have broken out and they're running around. Stephen and Francine escape as soon as they can on the news helicopter to pick up Roger who brings along his friend Peter. Together, the four of them land on the roof of a shopping mall and spend the entire film building their own little civilization inside. 

This is the most popular of the Romero trilogy and also where the cliche of "going to the mall in the event of an apocalypse" came from. The concept of zombies in a mall is also commentary on consumerism at the time.

I love how the four main characters are written in this film. Every single one of them had absolutely zero effort put into their character in the script. But that allows the four actors just to act like themselves. Through that, we learn about these characters by what they do rather than what they bluntly tell the audience. And there is also no sappy scene where everyone talks about their loved ones or what they'll do when the apocalypse blows over. No, these are people living in the moment. But it's just so refreshing to watch a film where it doesn't feel like those "required" boxes needed to be checked off. Of course, that was unintentional by George Romero when he wrote the script because he did admit that the premise came before the characters. But even so, we still have wonderful arcs and humanity in these characters. 

The only real character to have an arc is Francine who starts the film as incapable of taking care of herself. But through the film, she learns how to shoot and Stephen teaches her how to fly the helicopter in case anything would happen to him. And that does sound like cliche things in a movie, but it's so subtlety handled. 

What I also love is how this just isn't a horror-zombie film, it's also a comedy at times and a fantasy film. It's a wonderful "what if..." film because everyone has been in a store before and wanted to spend the night running around doing whatever you wanted. And that's pretty much the whole movie.

There's a homage to that fantasy aspect in 'Zombieland' where the group trashes a convenience store, which I'm sure everyone has thought about doing as well. 

The entire film is our four leads trying to make the mall a liveable place and there are steps for doing so. They first need a basecamp where the zombies can't get to or find. Then they must kill all the zombies in the mall, dispose of their bodies, and clean up the blood. Then baracde the entrances to the mall with giant trucks. By doing all of that, they then control the entire mall. And it's a very fun process to watch. 

Then the rest of the film is watching their quality of life slowly rise until their living space in the mall just looks like an apartment.  But a biker gang discovers that they are living in the mall and plan to raid the entrance. And this sequence is where most of the comedy is. The bikers are driving their motorcycles inside and throwing pies in the zombie's faces. It's all very tongue-in-cheek and it doesn't break the tone either because it still retains that weird, low-budget, indy feeling. 

George Romero is more of a editor than anything. Whenever he makes a film, he gets as much footage as he thinks he needs, then makes it work in editing. Once again, he's a very independent filmmaker and neither is he overly flashy in this film. Most of this film was handheld and used natural lighting because they had very little time to shoot because they were allowed to shoot in a real mall, but only while it was closed. 

The zombies in this film were brought to life by the very famous, Tom Savini. This film isn't really his best work. A lot of the zombies are just painted grey. But all the headshots in this film are glorious. 
There's also a wonderful running visual gag in this film. Near the beginning, Roger loses his M16 because a zombie was grabbing at it. So for the entire rest of the film, if you look in the background, you can sometimes spot the zombie that's still holding the M16. Then that's paid off at the end of the film in a funny way.

This film was very influential when it came out. Everyone made their ripoff films and games like 'Left 4 Dead' had their homages to the film as well. Many of the genres hallmarks come from this film. 
I left many spoilers from this reviews because many have not seen this film. It is free to watch on YouTube. 

This is the most fun out of the trilogy and probably the best. It's the pinnacle zombie-film.

Rating: See It

-Nolan