Oct '14 *
George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) was released exactly ten years after his first zombie masterpiece, Night of the Living Dead. In many ways, it's an upgrade of the first movie. It's in color, there's a lot more violence, the locations are grander, and the music is now a combination of stock music and music recorded by Italian progressive rock band Goblin, who were brought in by the movie's producer, Italian horror director Dario Argento. When I first saw Dawn of the Dead around 2000 or so, I didn't even realize that it was a sequel to anything, but I knew from the first moments of the movie inside of the television studio that I was watching a movie that was going to be nothing like anything I'd ever seen before. The music alone told me that. And it only got even better from there.
Starring Ken Foree (From Beyond), Scott Reiniger (Knightriders), Gaylen Ross (Madman), and David Emge (Basket Case 2), with Tom Savini (From Dusk Till Dawn, who also did the special effects in this), John Amplas (Martin), and Taso Stavrakis (Knightriders) in small roles, it's the ultimate zombie movie. With its greyish blue zombies, pink blood, and shopping mall setting, Dawn of the Dead has quite possibly left behind an even bigger footprint in the history of zombie movies than its predecessor, again showing just what can be accomplished on a low budget and again proving that back then, George Romero knew exactly how to make his zombie movies stand out from the rest of the zombie movies that were cropping up during that time.
Stock up on your lighter fluid and Spam and get ready for another... Reviews with Ballz!
While Night of the Living Dead is the beginning of world's zombie problem, Dawn of the Dead begins a few weeks in. People are still in the cities, TV stations are still on air, and the police are still trying to battle crime, but right away, you can tell that there's an overall feeling of hopelessness. People are shown to be easily agitated and acting illogical. As I said before, the movie starts in a television studio, where Fran (Gaylen Ross) works and it's quite hectic, between the interview they're trying to air with a doctor to provide information to the public and people walking out on their jobs after having enough of the chaos in the studio. Eventually, her boyfriend, Stephen (David Emge), shows up to tell her his plan to escape with her. With them, they bring their cop friend, Roger (Scott Reiniger), and his new friend, Peter (Ken Foree).
Escaping from the city together isn't the end of their troubles though and exhausted from everything that's occurred, they eventually discover a shopping mall. Deeming a part of it to be safe enough, they decide to rest up there. After all, any place that's away from the living dead is a good place, right? Of course, there are strings attached to this little hiding spot they find, such as the fact that the rest of the mall is full of zombies and from how things have played out up to this point, it doesn't look like anyone will be coming to help them out anytime soon. I think the fact that it's just the four of them alone for most of the movie adds to the overall hopelessness of the situation.
With a budget a little higher than Night of the Living Dead, this time at $650,000, George Romero really does go all-out with Dawn of the Dead. In a way, it's hard to even compare it to the first movie, because while it sort of works as a companion piece as far as the style of the two movies go, with the low budget, great use of library music, and again setting the bar for zombie movies, it's also very much its own beast. You can really tell that Romero put as much heart into this as Night of the Living Dead, if not more considering the fact that he ended up with a script filled with specific details that caused it to be way more pages than the movie's length was actually intended to be.
Now, I mentioned in my Night of the Living Dead review how useless Barbra was and how George Romero almost did the same exact thing with this movie. Well, here, the problem is with Fran. She's almost just as fucking useless as Barbra! Again, I get that she might be in shock. But what she's gone through compared to what Barbra went through seems like nothing. When Stephen is trying to fight off a zombie and tells her to run, but she neither runs nor tries to help is just one of many instances when I feel like they would have been better off leaving her ass behind at the television studio. I do say Romero almost did the same thing for a reason though, because unlike Barbra, Fran does prove to be useful a few times in the movie.
Though I never owned this movie on VHS, I rented it on VHS plenty and I've watched my DVDs plenty too. Including the Ultimate Edition, which comes with three cuts of the movie (theatrical/director, European, and extended cuts), I own five different DVDs of it. I also have an edit that combines footage from all three official cuts into one, extremely long movie. I personally prefer the theatrical cut though. It's easily the most well-polished cut. Well, why the hell are you still reading this shit? Even if you've seen it, go watch Dawn of the Dead now!
My Rating: 5/5
George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) was released exactly ten years after his first zombie masterpiece, Night of the Living Dead. In many ways, it's an upgrade of the first movie. It's in color, there's a lot more violence, the locations are grander, and the music is now a combination of stock music and music recorded by Italian progressive rock band Goblin, who were brought in by the movie's producer, Italian horror director Dario Argento. When I first saw Dawn of the Dead around 2000 or so, I didn't even realize that it was a sequel to anything, but I knew from the first moments of the movie inside of the television studio that I was watching a movie that was going to be nothing like anything I'd ever seen before. The music alone told me that. And it only got even better from there.Starring Ken Foree (From Beyond), Scott Reiniger (Knightriders), Gaylen Ross (Madman), and David Emge (Basket Case 2), with Tom Savini (From Dusk Till Dawn, who also did the special effects in this), John Amplas (Martin), and Taso Stavrakis (Knightriders) in small roles, it's the ultimate zombie movie. With its greyish blue zombies, pink blood, and shopping mall setting, Dawn of the Dead has quite possibly left behind an even bigger footprint in the history of zombie movies than its predecessor, again showing just what can be accomplished on a low budget and again proving that back then, George Romero knew exactly how to make his zombie movies stand out from the rest of the zombie movies that were cropping up during that time.
Stock up on your lighter fluid and Spam and get ready for another... Reviews with Ballz!
While Night of the Living Dead is the beginning of world's zombie problem, Dawn of the Dead begins a few weeks in. People are still in the cities, TV stations are still on air, and the police are still trying to battle crime, but right away, you can tell that there's an overall feeling of hopelessness. People are shown to be easily agitated and acting illogical. As I said before, the movie starts in a television studio, where Fran (Gaylen Ross) works and it's quite hectic, between the interview they're trying to air with a doctor to provide information to the public and people walking out on their jobs after having enough of the chaos in the studio. Eventually, her boyfriend, Stephen (David Emge), shows up to tell her his plan to escape with her. With them, they bring their cop friend, Roger (Scott Reiniger), and his new friend, Peter (Ken Foree). Escaping from the city together isn't the end of their troubles though and exhausted from everything that's occurred, they eventually discover a shopping mall. Deeming a part of it to be safe enough, they decide to rest up there. After all, any place that's away from the living dead is a good place, right? Of course, there are strings attached to this little hiding spot they find, such as the fact that the rest of the mall is full of zombies and from how things have played out up to this point, it doesn't look like anyone will be coming to help them out anytime soon. I think the fact that it's just the four of them alone for most of the movie adds to the overall hopelessness of the situation. With a budget a little higher than Night of the Living Dead, this time at $650,000, George Romero really does go all-out with Dawn of the Dead. In a way, it's hard to even compare it to the first movie, because while it sort of works as a companion piece as far as the style of the two movies go, with the low budget, great use of library music, and again setting the bar for zombie movies, it's also very much its own beast. You can really tell that Romero put as much heart into this as Night of the Living Dead, if not more considering the fact that he ended up with a script filled with specific details that caused it to be way more pages than the movie's length was actually intended to be. Now, I mentioned in my Night of the Living Dead review how useless Barbra was and how George Romero almost did the same exact thing with this movie. Well, here, the problem is with Fran. She's almost just as fucking useless as Barbra! Again, I get that she might be in shock. But what she's gone through compared to what Barbra went through seems like nothing. When Stephen is trying to fight off a zombie and tells her to run, but she neither runs nor tries to help is just one of many instances when I feel like they would have been better off leaving her ass behind at the television studio. I do say Romero almost did the same thing for a reason though, because unlike Barbra, Fran does prove to be useful a few times in the movie.Though I never owned this movie on VHS, I rented it on VHS plenty and I've watched my DVDs plenty too. Including the Ultimate Edition, which comes with three cuts of the movie (theatrical/director, European, and extended cuts), I own five different DVDs of it. I also have an edit that combines footage from all three official cuts into one, extremely long movie. I personally prefer the theatrical cut though. It's easily the most well-polished cut. Well, why the hell are you still reading this shit? Even if you've seen it, go watch Dawn of the Dead now!
My Rating: 5/5
