Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Film: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Stars: David Emge, Kene Foree, Scott Reininger, Gaylen Ross

Director: George P. Romero

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-90's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

You'll notice, by-and-large, that we are not doing sequels this month.  This is both out of practicality (I have a lot of horror blindspots, particularly in the 1970's & 80's that I need to catch up on), and out of pragmatism (this is the fourth season of this series...a future season of sequels might be kind of fun so I'm saving that as an option).  However, we are going to make one exception, partially because I'm a bit obtuse and didn't realize when I was making this year's list that this movie was a sequel.  Zombie films are not my area of expertise, and and while you assume that films entitled Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead were connected in some fashion...that connection didn't occur to my brain, and I had shared this list with enough people that I didn't want to disappoint by not including this picture.  So we are doing our sole sequel today, though it's a sequel in pretty much just subject matter, as not only does this movie have none of the actors of Night of the Living Dead, it also is tonally quite different from that movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the same universe as Night of the Living Dead, though based on the set design and the technology I assume that it had to be meant to be set in the 1970's rather than the original's 1960's motif.  The ghouls (aka zombies) have taken over, feasting on the flesh of the living.  We see a traffic reporter Stephen Andrews (Emge) and his pregnant girlfriend, TV producer Fran Parker (Ross) planning to steal the news station's helicopter & flee north.  Concurrently two police officers across town Peter Washington (Foree) and Roger DeMarco (Reininger) are trying to maintain the law in a world gone mad, and Roger suggests they team up with his friend Stephen to flee the city.  After some skirmishes with more zombies, the four of them flee, and eventually come to a shopping mall, which they are able to barricade completely from the hapless zombies.  This is an optimal shelter (it has food, ammunition, & medicine), but it becomes too attractive as a group of renegades come across them.  By the end of the movie, only Fran & Peter have survived not being bitten or killed by the zombies, and are flying off with the helicopter, low on fuel, into the unknown.

This film, like it's predecessor, has a long footprint.  It has inspired four official sequels, as well as a remake of the film directed by Zack Snyder, and Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead is a clear parody of the movie.  It's easy to see why.  The film, like its predecessor, is not shy about social commentary, giving us the pitfalls of capitalism (it's underlined through exposition by Peter multiple times that the reason the zombies are coming to the mall is less about finding the four people living there and more about "this is what they did in life, and they can't stop coming back...even if they don't know why") and how addictive it is.  It also mocks the disposability of life, the way that we see the horde of renegade bikers coming in and basically terrorize the zombies, robbing them & using them for sport (until their inevitable comeuppance).  Plus, the visual effects, art direction, & makeup (Tom Savini, y'all) are all top drawer.  You will want to shop at this mall, capitalism be damned, by the end of this film.

But I was "ehh" on it for large swaths of the movie.  It's way too long, and becomes repetitive (you wouldn't guess from that description that it was well over 2 hours).  It also doesn't really understand what type of movie it's making.  The film frequently uses the zombies for genuine comic effect, making them look like hapless figures that should be easy to fend off, but then other scenes they are genuinely terrifying, and still in other scenes we get relationship fights between Fran & Stephen that feel like they'd be more at-home in a 1970's familial drama.  It doesn't work.  It's objectively a good movie, and there are parts worth recommending, but I'm going 3-stars as it largely wasn't for me in the way Night of the Living Dead was.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, Son of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Mummy's Ghost, The Uninvited, House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Village of the Damned, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead, The Wicker Man, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Carrie, Halloween