Marathon of Shops: Dawn of the Dead (1979)

George Romero is the main reason that zombies ever got as popular as they have.  In the 1960s, he released a movie called Night of the Living Dead which is the first popular movie to feature zombies.  It is still seen as a pinnacle in the history of horror, and one of the most notable zombie movies to date.  In 1979, George Romero followed up his original horror movie with Dawn of the Dead.

Dawn of the Dead took the events of a zombie outbreak a little bit farther into the future.  The plague had been going on for a longer amount of time than was shown in the predecessor.  The survivors in this pseudo sequel were barricaded inside a mall while the zombies roamed around outside.  David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, and Gaylen Ross starred as the four refugees who were trying to survive in hard times.

The calm before the storm.

Having recently watched the remake, the original Dawn of the Dead was quite a different film.  In the original, the zombies were slow, there were only four characters in the mall, and the reason that they left the mall was almost entirely different.  This set a much different pace and tone than the remake which had many more characters, and fast zombies.  The two films were entirely different outside of the core premise of people being trapped in a mall surrounded by zombies.  This contrast was an interesting thing to consider about the two movies.

Another contrast can be seen between Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead, which are normally considered as part of the same franchise.  Night of the Living Dead stayed fairly true to its horror roots and tended to lean solely on terror, suspense, and horrific sights.  Dawn of the Dead played on the same aspects but threw in a little bit of humor to spice things up.  The most notable instance of humor came during the end credits of the film.  Whereas Night of the Living Dead stayed fairly serious with the subject matter, Dawn of the Dead had fun with it.

Looking at the movie without the comparisons in mind, Dawn of the Dead was as fun to watch as it seemed to be to make.  It was easy to tell that the actors were enjoying themselves and it helped in making their interactions more believable.  Without that believability of camaraderie between the characters building throughout the movie, the entire back half would have felt false.  This element helped to hold the movie together.

The weakest aspect of Dawn of the Dead was in the climax.  A threat was brought into the film that need not have been there at all.  The action that came as a result of that threat was great to look at, but the threat itself seemed like the writers could not come up with a way to get the main characters from point a to point b so they decided to try something completely and utterly random.  This added element did get the characters from one destination to another but felt out of place in the narrative.  Tom Savini was a bonus; however, he did not help make this feel like it fit with the rest of the film.

Did somebody say my name?

Regardless of a major narrative problem, Dawn of the Dead was still one hell of a ride.  It was a humorous horrific thrill.  They can quote that on any future video releases.  This movie deserves a watch from anyone who hasn’t seen it.  Go out and grab a copy of the movie.  It will not disappoint.

The next movie up in the Marathon of Shops is Career Opportunities.  I saw it once, many years ago.  I don’t remember much about it aside from the cast.  I need to speed up the watching of the movies so that I can get through all twelve this month.  We’ll see how that goes.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

See you later.