Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Alternate titles : Zombie, Zombies, Zombie-Dawn of the Dead, Zombies-Dawn of the Dead

Tagline : "When there's no more room in Hell......The Dead will walk the Earth."

Some 10 years after "Night of the Living Dead" George Romero followed up his original zombie horror with this bloody, violent and quite gruesome, but extremely enjoyable, seventies sequel. In which the bodies of the recently dead have once again started coming back to life and attacking the living.

With the zombie plague getting out of hand, as the police and national guard fail to contain the situation, two members of a Philadelphia SWAT unit, Roger (Scott Reineger) and Peter (Ken Foree), decide to get out of the city with the help of their friends Stephen (David Emge) and Francine (Gaylen Ross), who have taken a helicoptor from the TV station where they work.

Finding an abandoned, out of town shopping mall, they decide it couild be the perfect palce to set up shop and quickly set about barricading the doors, sealing all the entrances and wiping out the zombies still inside.

But when an army of bikers show up and try to re-open one of the entrances so they can loot the mall, the zombies move back in and the group find themselves in the middle of a war zone between the looters on one side and zombies on the other. Producing some spectacularly gory scenes as zombies are blasted left and right and bikers are devoured in loving detail.

Whilst I love all of Romero's original "Living Dead" films (he would go on to make some more in the early 00's, which were not in same calibre), Dawn is definitely my favourite. Originally heavily censored in the UK by the BBFC who took a dislike to Tom Savini's gore effects, the film has since been passed uncut so we can now enjoy it in all its gory glory!

Overall Marks : 9/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• The shopping mall in the film was the Monroeville Mall, located in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles East of Pittsburgh. The mall has since become something of a shrine to fans of the film, though none of the original stores featured at the time are still there. With the possible exception of JC Penny, who (as of 2018) now operate in a different part of the building.
• The film's budget was $1.5million. Most of which was provided by Italian Director Dario Argento, who agreed to help finance the film in return for being allowed to release his own edit of the film in mainland Europe.
• The film's budget wouldn't stretch to hiring stuntmen. So Tom Savini, who was doing the effects, along with his friend Taso Stavrakis, performed nearly all the stunts in the film. They also played a couple of bikers during the end battle. Savini is the one that Peter (Ken Foree) blows off the balcony with his hunting rifle, Stavrakis is the one with the sledgehammer.
• The TV control room technicians were played by Director George Romero and wife Christine Forest. Romero can also be briefly glimpsed playing one of the looters at the end, wearing a Santa suit.
• Some of the Zombie extras got drunk at one of the late night bars in the Mall whilst waiting for filming to start and decided to take the directors golf cart for a spin around the mall. They subsequently crashed it into one of the pillars, damaging the marble cladding, much to the annoyance of the mall owners.
• The M16 rifles carried by Roger and Peter were actually airsoft replicas, which is why you never see any muzzle flashes or spent cartridges being ejected when they're fired.
• There have been at least 3 different cuts of the film, an extended "directors cut" version. The shorter US theatrical version. The European re-edit by Dario Argento, plus an unnofficial composite version. The soundtrack was a mixture of original music by Italian group The Goblins and stock music from the DeWolf library. Though these were used differently in each version. More info on these can be found HERE
• The film, originally released as "Zombies : Dawn of the Dead" in the UK was very heavily censored by the BBFC. The subsequent UK video release was cut even further. Later DVD releases suffered less severe cuts, but it wasn't until 2003 the film was finally passed fully uncut.

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