Dawn of the Dead

Dawn Of The Dead (1978) * Favorite Movie *

[quote] [/quote]

Recommendations: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), Requiem for a Dream, Dawn of the Dead

Last updated: 2010-05-16 09:10:52 by user07

Dawn Of The Dead (1978) - Every Onscreen Kill Captured!

Hi Kiddies, and welcome to what's certainly going to be one of my own personal favourite pages. For those of you who have not seen the original Dawn Of The Dead, this is just one big spoiler. For the rest of you, here is a celebration of every single one of the 82 onscreen kills that can be found in the 1978 Romero Zombie Classic, Dawn Of The Dead, screen capped by yours truly, for your viewing pleasure.

(Read Less...)

Recommendations: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), Requiem for a Dream, Dawn of the Dead

Last updated: 2010-05-13 04:01:05 by user07

Why Romero's Zombie Movies Are Awesome

Zombie movies, particularly those of George Romero, hold a special place in my heart. What can I say, I dig apocalyptic that have as much gore as social commentary. A good zombie movie has that perfect blend that has you laughing at the ridiculous violent one minute and asking yourself who the zombies represent the next. Most of George Romero’s zombie movies accomplish that, starting with Night of the Living Dead.

I’ll be brief with Night, since it’s been analyzed so many times before. And, honestly, I respect it more than enjoy it. It began one of my favorite genres, but it shows its age and lack of budget these days. I know many people enjoy it outright, but I’m a much bigger fan of Dawn and Day.

Dawn of the Dead, the masterpiece zombie movie set in a shopping mall, has also been analyzed quite a bit. It’s a statement about the material society we live since a shopping mall offers refuge. And who really represents humanity, the living or the dead? I’m not big on looking for representations in a zombie movie. You know why I think it takes place in a mall? Because the setting supplied the characters with everything they needed. It also allowed some humor. Parallels can be drawn between society and zombie movies quite easily (they are usually pretty blatant in their ideas about humanity), but I find more enjoyment from them when I stay with what’s onscreen and leave it at that. So I don’t watch Dawn and question my materialistic nature, I watch it for that helicopter/decapitation scene. I watch it for that exploding head near the beginning. I watch it for Tom Savini’s cameo. I watch it because, like in every Romero zombie flick, it shows, rather than implies, that some people can end up behaving worse than zombies when faced with extinction. That is the philosophy and deeper meaning that I find most important and it’s also one of the most obvious points Romero likes to make.


That point is made to perfection in Day of the Dead. I might be in the minority here, but Day is my favorite zombie movie. The acting is over the top and the dialogue is goofy as hell, but I love every minute of it. It is a zombie movie after all; shouldn’t everyone be talking and acting in exaggerated ways? I know I would be in those circumstances. The setting is perfect. Day takes place in an underground bunker in which a power struggle between a group of scientists and their military protectors is about to boil over. The scientific aspect is what leads to a thought-provoking aspect in the zombie world. A doctor is trying to domesticate a captured zombie and is slightly successful. The implication of this is that zombies are practically the next stage of human evolution. They already have the numbers, and now we see that they are capable of human instincts and even slight thought. That is more terrifying than a splatter of gore.


But speaking of gore, Day does not disappoint. There is some truly disturbing and disgusting stuff going on in this one. People are ripped apart and feasted on and it’s all quite messy and noisy. It’s not all fake blood and pig intestines, though. There is some real wizardry at work with some of the set pieces in the laboratory. For example, there is a very realistic body with a completely exposed brain instead of a complete head that moves around convincingly. There is also an impressive effect late in the movie in which the top half of a zombie’s head is cut off with a shovel and the eyes keep moving.


All of this is set to an amazing musical score that accents the ideas of the film well. I don’t know how to put it, exactly. At first, the music may sound dated and cheesy, but it just fits perfectly. In a scene in which the characters discuss possible reasons for the zombie outbreak, the music serves the conversation with a hopeful quality that is always welcome in a zombie film.


The conversation raises some great questions as to why a zombie outbreak might occur. Once again, these are not implied ideas, but ideas blatantly spoken between characters. The chief idea is that humans have become “too big for their britches” and God is telling us that it is time to get back to the basics, away from all the science and technology. It might not be a groundbreaking thought (it seems every natural disaster get’s compared to God’s wrath these days and it was the first response by almost every early culture to think that a god was punishing them when things went bad), but that’s the point. It doesn’t have to necessarily be original. It just needs to be presented in an interesting setting, and what setting is better than a zombie film?




Now back to that whole idea of humans being worse than the zombies. This will get into SPOILER territory for Day of the Dead. In this film, a zombie actually becomes a protagonist. Those military guys I mentioned above go a bit crazy and start to take over. And when the commander (who has the best death scene in zombie movie history as he yells “Choke on ‘em!” as the zombies rip out his insides and begin to feast) kills the main scientist, the trained zombie breaks free and looks for revenge. You know humanity is in bad shape when you’re rooting for a zombie to kill one of the last survivors of the human race. Oh, and any movie that has a line like “I’m running this monkey farm now, Frankenstein, and I want to know what the **** you’re doing with my time!” is awesome in my book.


Before I wrap this up, I want to acknowledge the other two Romero films: Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. I am actually a fan of Land, since it expands on the whole evolution storyline and because it contains some funny zombie moments. It just didn’t have the mood and style that I grew to love in Dawn and Day. Still, a very enjoyable film. Now Diary, on the other hand, was awful. Romero tried going back to his low budget roots with this one but took about two steps too far back. The man used CG blood in a zombie movie! That is unforgivable. He wanted to go low budget, yet computerized blood was somehow cheaper than corn syrup and red dye. I have other issues with the film, but it’s really not worth getting into.

Zombie films are a special breed of film that allows deep thought and obvious fun. It just doesn’t get better than that. Whenever the enjoyment of a film can come from multiple interpretations while there is visceral action and comedy onscreen, then something awesome is at work

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead - my friend says, "One of the best horror movies ever." Is it? I'm not sure, but I'm inclined not to think so. I'm actually more partial towards Night of the Living Dead. That's not to say that Dawn of the Dead is a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, because it is really good. But it's also not to be confused with this poster over at Freaking News, Hawn of the Dead, seen here.

Scary isn't it?

But anyway, I think we all know what Dawn of the Dead is about. The continuation of George A. Romero's Dead trilogy, this takes place when the zombie infestation has broken out and 4 people seek shelter in a shopping mall, where they are forced to battle not only zombies, but themselves as well.

Now I really liked the beginning of the movie, where we're just thrown into the thick of things. It makes it scarier because at first we don't know exactly what's going on. The scene where the cops bust into the apartment complex and have to exterminate all the zombies kept in the basement is actually very suspenseful, and their sense of dread at having to kill these things that were once human is thick and moving.

But keeping parallel to the sense of unease, there's also a lot of dark humor that I couldn't help but find hilarious. The zombies and their unending stupidity, their shambling gait and haphazard tipsyness are just ridiculous, and we seem to get many shots of this throughout the movie to tell us these are both ourselves and NOT ourselves. They were human, but not any longer. I loved the scene where Peter has to shoot the zombie children, just for shock value, because they aren't lovable kiddies any longer. Maybe I'm just a little morbid, but the soundtrack of upbeat little ditties played over the blasting of zombies was pretty humorous to me.

Acting was believable, even if I didn't really like the characters. Flyboy comes off as a whiny and utterly helpless baby, as does Frannie, who becomes a detached and frail woman through most of the movie (which mimics Barbara from Night of the Living Dead, who couldn't do anything). Yet Frannie somehow learns to become a marine sniper after she's given a gun, and I guess it does make sense that during a rough situation her adrenaline might kick in to save her, but she has already stated that "she might learn" how to use the gun. Roger is likable enough in the beginning, taking out zombies with quick pepperings of bullets and knocking Flyboy out of the way when he is incompetent at headshots, but when he starts to go crazy in a scene where him and Peter are trying to block the mall entrances with trucks, I really wanted him dead. I guess Romero did as well, because that's just what happens. Peter is the most likable character, mostly because he can be light-hearted and deadly serious in the blink of an eye, and he's a goddam badass. Yet I can't help feeling like the characterization is a little lacking. I know that they are portrayed pretty well as fearful, but what about the other aspects of their emotions, and lives? We get some humor, but what about their past lives?

I also had to laugh at a scene where Peter blows a zombie's brains out while it's on top of Roger, and the blood goes all over said character. He does attempt to wipe his face off, but in a different shot, his face is miraculously clean! I can tell you from experience with nosebleeds that if you get blood on your face and try to wipe it off, it's going to leave a nice bloody smear. I just wonder how the zombification process is contracted. Only by biting? Because you'd think that getting blood in any of your cavities would cause you to become a zombie. Also, there's a scene where Roger chugs out of a whiskey bottle after he has been bitten, and you'd think that if someone were to drink after him, the saliva on the bottle opening would cause them to turn into a zombie, but that's never mentioned.

I hear all about the social commentary that Romero has written into the movie. How it's really about our sins as humanity. I get it, I really do, although I think it would have been a greater point to get across if it wasn't so sparsely thrown in with all of the zombies. Yes, their greed (such as the bikers) has gotten them in trouble to an extent, but really I like the conflict between the zombies and the humans more. What's more, there's not really an explanation as to how dead bodies began to come alive again, which means that it doesn't have to mean a higher power has released this plague on us. Plus, the ending leaves us thinking that maybe Peter and Frannie will still be able to survive, and since Peter was greedy in his conflict between the bikers, it doesn't really end on a good note, because Peter, as we see it, is not "punished" for his sins. Instead of the whole social commentary bit, I like to think of it more as just a really fun zombie movie, and it's more enjoyable to me as a whole.

The movie is quite fast-paced, however, and you won't find yourself wanting it to end. I would have liked to see a bit more violence, just because I'm a gorehound, and I wanted it to end differently than from what it did, but otherwise this is a great movie to watch, for one if you want a poignant theme to our contemporary society, and also for its horror appeal. Oh, plus it has a great soundtrack from Goblin and Dario Argento. While the dawn has already passed on this movie, as it's now 20 years old, the movie still holds up over time, and while not being the best movie (or horror movie for that matter) ever made in my opinion, it's still a damn fine one.

(Read Less...)

Last updated: 2009-08-24 03:08:33 by Ryneb