I promised myself it wouldn't come to this.
For Movie Week during the last leg of Spooky Month, I initially thought I would do a whole week of zombie movies. While there was definitely enough fodder to give life to such an indulgent idea, I thought it would be better to cover a broader theme of horror movies than strictly the zombie sub-genre. Well, nuts to that. I'm not saying it's all Romero from here on out, I'm just saying the original 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead is sublime.
Expanding on the premise posited in the initial Living Dead installment, Dawn of the Dead is everything a sequel ought to be. Well, it's not technically a sequel. None of the characters return, nor do the locales. Instead, it's a movie set in the same universe, the same fictional disaster as the first and following installments. Whereas Night was a claustrophobic, isolated film that ran on anxiety, Dawn is huge and sprawling, working in the notion of growing dread. It's a movie that takes the same scope from the first and opens it up. As Romero pulls the camera back we get a sense of the devastation on a wider scale. We see a clearer take on his examination of modern living as viewed through the lens of horrendous circumstances. His allegories are broader, yet more clearly delivered. The action is more spread out, as are the beats of the story. So what gives?
Dawn of the Dead, famously filmed in 1977 Monroeville, tells the tale of four survivors as they escape the crumbling of society by seeking shelter in a shopping mall. While that sums up the plot, it's much too brief to encapsulate what happens. The movie opens on a frantic television studio, broadcasting in the last day's of humankind holding their collective crap together. Chaos begins to take over the studio. No one is in control. The government is at a loss (or has pulled back, in a pre-Redeker plan sort of way). No official word will tell anyone what to do, other than to shoot for the head. The dead are coming back to life and attacking the living, and order is breaking down on a massive level. We see a SWAT team enduring a standoff with people in a brownstone who won't obey the imposed curfew and who are also harboring their deceased relatives in the basement. A botched assault occurs and innocent people are killed. Stuff's just going wrong all over, basically. So a plucky group of people (smartly fending for themselves) pilot a stolen news chopper away from the city. After a near-fatal refueling pit stop, the band of survivors find refuge in the newest pantheon of American excess, the shopping mall. After a fantastic series of coordinated operations, they barricade the entrances and clear the mall of remaining zombies...and with that, they're trapped.
That's what we all forget about the novelty of Dawn of the Dead - seeking shelter in a mall is great until you realize it's just a fancy prison filled with stuff. The four protagonists initially seek material thrills with their surroundings but quickly become disillusioned with the reality of their situation. A pallor falls over them as they attempt to settle in to their new lives as the last people in their own little world, but it only gets worse. I won't give away the end of a 30 year old movie, but suffice to say - it gets worse. It's Romero, so take a wild guess. But needless to say, our own inability to work together is always our own downfall, movie or not.
The sad thing about all of this is that I shouldn't even have to tell you any of this. Dawn of the Dead wasn't just popular right out of the gate - it's become a legend in the horror field, and the alpha and omega of zombie movies. It's permeated our culture to the point that you don't even realize it until you dig it up. Countless musicians have sampled the iconic soundtrack and score, and even more have sampled audio and bits of dialogue. Entire movies have been inspired just from this film. Without Dawn of the Dead there would be no Walking Dead. Crazy amounts of video games have found inspiration from it, from Resident Evil to Dead Rising. It's become an institution of the zombie genre and is regularly included on lists of the greatest films ever made. The pacing might be a bit sluggish at times, but it's a movie that is so well crafted that a simple premise feels massive and organically hewn. The characters, while not Shakespearean, are natural and believable, enduring the end of the world and struggling to cope in any way they can. Tom Savini's effects are unparalleled, even to this day. I showed a friend of mine this movie and even though he's a horror buff (and I'd seen it several times) we both still winced at some of the more brutal encounters. That's saying something for a movie that's over 30 years old.
So why do I preach about a movie that seems to get all the respect it deserves? Because it's just that good. I know it has deservingly received accolades for the its quality and longevity, but it still deserves more adoration. While the recent remake was close, it just doesn't hold a candle to the original. Dawn of the Dead is a masterpiece, the very definition of what a zombie movie should be. You don't want to slum it with slasher flicks this Halloween? Look no further.
For Movie Week during the last leg of Spooky Month, I initially thought I would do a whole week of zombie movies. While there was definitely enough fodder to give life to such an indulgent idea, I thought it would be better to cover a broader theme of horror movies than strictly the zombie sub-genre. Well, nuts to that. I'm not saying it's all Romero from here on out, I'm just saying the original 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead is sublime.
