DAWN OF THE DEAD is a classic horror film although only a short time has passed since it was released. With a remake in the works it’s important to go back and take a look at the original. And it’s a horror film that loses nothing with time.
The story picks up where the original left off, a world where flesh eating zombies are roaming the countryside in search of fresh kill. This plague, which is never explained as to how it began, has multiplied and now the ratio of zombies to live humans is about equal.
Enter a pair of S.W.A.T. members (Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger) who have tired of hunting down these zombies. Reiniger plans on escaping the city with a friend and his girlfriend (David Emgee and Gaylen Ross), a pilot and a producer for the local TV station.
They four set off to find a safe haven and discover a world gone mad along the way, with order destroyed and hunting parties roaming the countryside.
As they fly, they come across an abandoned mall and land on the roof. Noticing the obvious pluses of taking the mall over, blocking the entranceways and staying put, they make their play. But taking out a mall filled with these creatures is not an easy task.
Blocking the doors with trucks from a nearby freight company and then dispensing of the zombies within, the four find it a home away from home. One casualty in their conquest leaves the other three enjoying the spoils of war and soon finding themselves bored.
The three reinvigorate their will to live, as Ross learns to fly the helicopter and they monitor the radio in the hopes that there are other survivors. When a call comes in they almost invite the callers, but then discover that it’s only a band of marauding bikers on the move, raiding any and everything in their path. A battle ensues in which not only the bikers but the zombies reinvade the mall as well.
What has been most talked about with this film is the fact that it is more than a straight on piece of gore filled horror. Director George Romero has used the mall and the creatures as a metaphor for the mindless zombie like shoppers seen everywhere in this country, evident in today’s malls as much as it was in 1978 when this film was made. Go to any mall in the land today and walk around looking at the shoppers after seeing this flick and you will be sure to see one or more characters come to life before your eyes.
While a horror movie doesn’t have to rely on gore, this movie was one of the first to utilize it, garnering it an X rating had it actually been submitted. Relegated to midnight showing across the country and no newspaper advertising, it still gathered a cult following that included the likes of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel.
The movie takes the day to day spots that we all go to each week and turns them into the most horrific of locations. With this in mind, we are put upon not in a castle or haunted house, but a shopping center that contains all that we feel we need or want. It is a well lit and mundane location, a spot where we are offered muzak and water fountains, only to have it tainted by the horrors of these creatures.
We are taken into a world filled with fear of the unknown, of a future that may not exist. And we are given a chance to look at ourselves in a different light. And at the same time, we scared to death by both what we may be and by what may happen.
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