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Dawn
of the Dead review by Terry Wickham
"When there's no room in hell-the dead will walk the earth." Ken Foree's character Peter basically sums up the entire living dead series. Dawn of the Dead is the sequel to the 1967 classic, Night of the Living Dead. This time, the film is in color and for good reason; we see a lot of red. This DVD is the original Director's Cut, which runs 137 minutes. The film has a knockout beginning as we get to see the affect the living dead is having on the world, creating chaos in a small television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the first shot of the film, Francine (Gaylen Ross) is lying against a red carpet symbolizing things to come; she will stand while blood is spilt around her. After a carnal house invasion of a building by a SWAT team, the film focuses in our four main characters; two people from the TV station Francine and her boyfriend Stephen (David Emge) and two SWAT team members Peter (Ken Foree) & Roger (Ken H. Reiniger). They join together as sort of a team that takes to the air via helicopter to get out and away from the populated city, which has become madness. They end up flying to a large shopping mall and take refuge there. The characters end up staying at the mall a while since it has almost house like conditions in the upper part of the shopping center. They are able to seal themselves off from any other people, after destroying all the zombies in the mall. They end up with a dream like situation of being able to take whatever they want from any store in the mall. It becomes sort of fantasy like game with each character indulging themselves in clothing, food and other accessories. Romero hits a couple social buttons here with his cinematic comments about our society. When one of the characters asks why the zombies flock to the mall, another character explains that it's their instinct. They are drawn there because it was an import place in their life. I take this as a direct statement that many people go to the mall for really no reason. In that respect, are we any different than zombies? Dawn of the Dead has it's own stamp among horror films and I believe it opened the door for the special make-up effects gore that splashed the screen after. George A. Romero and Tom Savini make a great team. One person helps amplify the other's skill. Their work on this film is already legendary and will go down as a benchmark for that type of work. Savini also has multiple skills besides special make-up effects; he brings charisma every time he's on the screen as an actor and stuntman. Romero has never been noticed for stylish direction, but he has his own voice and you will hear it on this film. He seems to like a more simple approach to things visually, but underneath Romero is saying a lot about our society. That's what makes him special as a director. The one style you can pinpoint is that Romero gathers lots of shots and uses them in a massive amount of editing cuts. Many before me have discussed Romero's use of library music versus the score by Goblin. I'll just say that he uses both choices with effective results. Looking back on Dawn of the Dead, we have to appreciate the epic scale Romero and producer Richard P. Rubinstein tackled. I can only hope that one day we will see Romero get the same creative freedom he had on this influential film.
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