Dawn Of The Dead-- A Review

To celebrate the spirit of Halloween last night, the Missus and I got together with Cousin Viking and his GF and watched the zombie classic 'Dawn of the Dead.' There was some talk of maybe switching over to the other choice on offer for the evening 'Wolfman' but we stuck with what we had and I'm glad we did.

'Dawn Of The Dead' is George Romero's loose sequel to 1968's 'Night of The Living Dead' and it's what you'd expect: the tag line for the movie proclaims that 'When's There's No More Room In Hell the Dead will walk the Earth' and Romero drops us smack dab into the midst of chaos, with a civilization coming apart as it's being overrun by zombies.

The story begins at the WGON Television station in Philadelphia, where Stephen and his girlfriend Francine decided to escape using the station's traffic helicopter. They're joined by two members of a police SWAT team Roger and Peter and flee the rapidly collapsing city. Getting out into the country, they find fuel and continue on their journey before finding a shopping mall, where they manage to carve out of a life for themselves with every material good at their disposal.

Eventually they realize that the mall has essentially become their prison- Peter eventually gets bitten by a zombie and turns, being shot by Roger. Francine gets pregnant and tries to persuade Stephen that they should leave, but Stephen doesn't want to- though he relents enough to teach Francine how to fly the helicopter in case he is killed on incapacitated. Soon, a motorcycle gang turns up, looking to pillage the mall. They attempt to do so but pay a heavy price for it, as the zombies in the mall get some lunch, but soon enough Stephen gets bitten and zombified and soon the last redoubt of the survivors is about to be overrun. Roger initially tells Francine to leave without him, but changes his mind and successfully runs a gauntlet of zombies to the helicopter as they fly off into an uncertain future.

Overall, I think I was spoiled by '28 Days Later.' Those zombies were fast and damn scary- these zombies? Slow. Really sloooooooooooow. The old school ones! And sure enough, the movie itself starts off strong but sags in the middle- where the quartet is building it's happy little life in the duct work of the shopping mall- but it picks up nicely towards the end of the movie. It's not all horror either, which I liked: when they set down at the airstrip to get more fuel, Stephen's lack of shooting skills are comedic in the extreme. As is his elaborate, wild attempt to smack a zombie in the head with a hammer.

There's also a biting social commentary running throughout the movie against consumerism- especially obvious given the bulk of the action in the movie takes place in a shopping mall, full of zombies mindlessly shuffling around, because they were drawn back to the place that 'was so important in their lives.'

The special effects are very 1978. The zombies are nice and hungry-- you can see why this helped to invent the idea of the zombie horror flick.

Overall- *** out of ****: this movie sagged in the middle. A lot. But other than that, it was good, gory and apocalyptic fun. A true classic.