DAWN OF THE DEAD

Director: George A. Romero
1979

Released in 1979, ´Dawn Of The Dead´ is Romero's follow-up to his 1968 classic, ´Night Of The Living Dead´. The zombie plague that began in that first film has spread, causing chaos and mass hysteria in major cities around the country. Martial law has been instituted as the powers-that-be bicker endlessly, trying to decide how best to deal with the epidemic. When traffic helicopter reporter Stephen (aka Flyboy, played by David Emge) decides things are getting out of hand he steals the whirlybird, along with girlfriend Frannie (Gaylen Ross) and SWAT team members Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott H. Reiniger), and they set off for a better place. The better place takes the form of a deserted shopping mall on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. While the four initially only stop in order to stock up on supplies, the allure of all those material items at their disposal entices them into staying and setting up a homestead once they've cleared out the zombie inhabitants and secured it from outside attack.

Where ´Night Of The Living Dead´ was a straight up horror film (with some minor social commentary buried beneath the ever-present threat of the shambling undead), ´Dawn´ is something a bit more intriguing. Sure, much of ´Dawn´'s first thirty minutes or so has the same unrelenting feel of the earlier film, but once our heroes arrive at their final destination, the tone changes. It`s something of a hybrid a horror film with sociological impact. The film features some richly satirical moments between the explosions of violence and gore moments that illustrate our own consumerism run amok as it raises the question: just who are the real zombies? The shambling undead or the four characters who become trapped by their lust for the easy life inside the mall?