Dawn of the Dead (1978)

1978
Directed by George A. Romero
Starring David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Gaylen Ross

Yes, folks, I'm reviewing a zombie movie.  For my legion of (four) fans...I'm not happy about it either, but here goes.

The original 1978 Dawn of the Dead is one of those movies that critics the world over lose their contents for.  Hell, Roger Ebert gave it four stars, and he hated horror movies.  I'm going to try to curb my snark as much as possible for this review, so the short version is this: I agree with the critics...to an extent.  That other extent is hyperbole for reasons that I won't get into.  Nonetheless, this is DEFINITELY the second-best movie in Romero's trilogy that now consists of no less than six movies that I'm aware of.  Whoops, snark alert.  #1 on that list, by the way, would be that black-and-white original, the only flick in the series that I actually feel the urge to re-watch every now and then.

The raw numbers speak for themselves, though: $1.5 million budget, $55 million gross.  Modern-day film producers, take note - you can spend less than the GDP of a small country and make your film seem big, grand and epic.  Even more amazingly, it can be accomplished without CGI.  Just Tom Savini and a whole heap o' fake blood and makeup.  That's good stuff there, kids.

With that, let's get to the show.  If you'll recall, the first movie (which was inducted into my Registry of horror movies back when I had that dealio going on) was all about confinement.  Small group of survivors at a farmhouse, hordes of attacking zombies, dead girl in the basement...family fun all around.  This one takes that concept to a much grander scale.  The unknown epidemic causing the recently deceased to rise from their graves and spread their disease via Komodo Dragon-esque mouth bites has hit the country, and the zombies have begun to overtake the cities.  You know, one thing I have NEVER understood about Romero's movies is how the zombie side seems to be WINNING.  I mean, we see survivors mow down these undead denizens with machine guns with plenty of aplomb, and yet, we're constantly told that we're at Skynet-esque extinction's door.  But I digress.

The movie gets its introductory segment out of the way quickly.  Two SWAT officers in charge of fighting the zombie hordes are your resident badasses - Peter (Ken Foree, in probably my favorite performance in the entire series) and Roger (Scott Reiniger).  These guys provide the needed gunfire and combat skills that the plot will need later, but I've also gotta say that they're pretty likable people.  You know what, so are the movie's primary romantic couple.  TV staff member Stephen Andrews (David Emge) and his girlfriend Francine (Gaylen Ross) have a plot to survive the oncoming zombie apocalypse that threatens Philadelphia: steal a helicopter and make off for the suburbs.  After some initial zombie-shooting action, Peter and Roger find themselves stowing away.

The chosen landing site, and where the movie will house its action for the remainder of the running time, is the rooftop of a shopping mall.  This is where every critic just creams themselves, as there are supposedly all these allegorical themes that can be had from the chosen setting.  But you don't come to Lick Ness Monster's Horror Movie Mayhem for that sort of analysis, and besides, I could swear that I once read an interview with Romero that he only chose the setting because it made sense as a place for the survivors to have supplies anyway.  What can't be debated is that it IS a pretty nifty little setup.  With the zombies barricaded either outside or on the first floor, our four survivors make the upper levels of the mall their de facto apartments.  The script does a very admirable job making each character sympathetic in their own way, and the action sequences have the benefit of an amazing score by Goblin - the same band that did the music for several of Dario Argento's masterpieces.

We even get some pretty good dramatic developments.  During the course of the cleanup, Roger is bitten by one of the zombies and infected, while Francine reveals that she is pregnant.  In this regard, this flick is WAY more enjoyable than the original, where I wanted to choke the life out of every character with the exception of Ben.  Where it ISN'T as good is the suspense department.  We spend a LOT of time with these characters in the middle portions of the movie.  Francine takes flying lessons, Ben watches as his friend gradually succumbs to the zombie disease.  It's a weird conundrum.  Usually I'm all for more development, and the development we get here is good stuff but it kind of knocks the movie's momentum off in the middle when it comes to the scary factor.

And then the bikers show up.

The third trimester of this movie involves a fight between our camp of survivors and another, Cobra organization group of biker survivors who want the safety and comfort of the shopping mall all for themselves.  For me, this is where the momentum takes a bigger downturn.  The waning period of the movie is predictable, but not in the way that I usually like.  And yeah, that is a bullshit blanket statement and I fully admit to it, because I honestly don't know what I would have done differently were I writing the damn script.  So who knows, maybe I'm just a moron. 

Although I do VERY much enjoy the final minute or so, with Peter's overzealous rampage of doom.  The first time I saw this movie, that scene got rewound no less than ten times.  Hilarity to an Eddie Murphy level.

Anyway...time to tote everything up.  Folks, I DO like this movie, but not enough or in the way that I ever want to really watch it again.  It's not a particularly enjoyable movie, although that can be said for some of the best horror movies of all time.  Audition comes to mind off the top of my head as far as movies that fit this description.  And...yeah, my zombie movie bias is starting to creep in again, I can't deny it.  I very much enjoy the beginning and middle of Dawn of the Dead, as well as the characters and the setting that the movie quickly calls home.  But I do think that the flick flies off the rails a bit once the other characters show up.  Oh, and Savini...awesome stuff on the makeup FX side, but that's almost such a given that it borders on mind-numbingly redundant.

*** out of ****.  Every horror fan should check it out once during their lifetime.  Whether or not you want to peruse it more is probably up to your personal tastes.  And it's loads better than the 2004 Zack Snyder remake, where the director claims that he invented fast zombies, characters that are nowhere near as likable and that stupid pregnancy/zombie baby storyline.