Dawn of the Dead (1978), directed by George A. Romero
Production Company: Laurel Group
Movie Length: 126 min
I’d read for a while how good the “horror legend,” George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” was the pinnacle of zombie movies, the best horor movie ever made. I saw it at the video store near my sister’s house and I decided to check it out – Whoa, the reviews were right! This film is probably the best example of what makes a zombie movie truly excellent. A guy on IMDb said it quite well:
“The “social commentary” that people on this site rave about has been done before, and done better. Ok, I get that humans are soulless killers obsessed with consumerism and are actually more evil than zombies. Cute, George, real cute. Now why did it take you over two hours to tell us this? Dawn of the Dead is way too long, and it will give any viewer a headache. Zombie movies are good when the humans are in seemingly hopeless situations and always face the threat of being overrun. Throughout this whole movie, the audience has no reason to think the humans are in any danger at all. They run around the mall, punching (or at least punching air, the zombies fall down anyway) and shooting the zombies. So there goes the suspense aspect. The two military dudes park trucks in front of the entrances of the mall to keep zombies out. Good idea, but we don’t find this out for a long time.
I guess Dawn of the Dead has what I call the “2001” syndrome. Similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey, this film has somehow amassed a huge number of devoted fans who preach about its filmmaking prowess, going as far as to say it’s the greatest movie ever made. If that’s true, God help humanity. I can’t fathom how anyone could love this film so much. I’ve read some reviews telling me to “bow down before its amazingness.” I think I’d rather spit on it.”
The man knows his stuff.
“Dawn of the Dead” begins with people running around a television studio talking and well….I had no idea what the hell was going on. I don’t think anybody does. It’s just a completely forgettable scene that isn’t needed. There’s some kind of zombie scene after that at an apartment where a bunch of boring shit happens and some guy’s head explodes when shot. Yeah, great start.
For some reason, 4 people (3 guys and a girl) go to a house and start shooting zombies. There’s one bit where a guy is in a barn and dives and is suddenly outside. Great editing job. The black guy is about to shoot a zombie but sees the out-of-uniform white guy pull up his gun to shoot it so he dives out of the way. A zombie runs into the propellor of the helicopter and gets the side of it’s head cut off, that may sound cool but it’s done in a way that makes you just sigh and hope for better things to come. The white guy gets chewed out and they’re off to the mall.
The 4 break in the mall through the top and the guys leave the woman and go down the stairs. There’s a few zombies around the place and someone explains that after they died they went there because it was a familiar place to them when they lived. Whatever. The guys shoot more zombies and steal shit, then two of the guys decide to start riding trucks around. When I was watching this I had no idea that they intended to block the entrance with them until later, so when I was watching this scene I didn’t know what the hell was going on. The two guys refuse to run over any zombies, noo that would be too easy. The second guy keeps switching trucks for some reason and gets bit, oh lardy! They go back inside and someone says that it takes about three days to die from a zombie bite. Okay. The four of them decide to have some fun while they’re in the mall so they do a bunch of boring shit. The guy finally turns into a zombie and the black guy shoots him. Then the remaining white man and the woman have a romantic dinner. Some bikers come along and want to get in to kill the zombies, this is where the movie shines.
Get ready to watch some of the most boring action you’ll ever see in your life. Bikers ride in and kill zombies. The remaining white guy starts shooting at the bikers for reasons unknown so now it’s a war between the zombies, the bikers, and the fag squad. More zombies are shot and the fag squad get into a car. They drive and shoot more zombies. Sometime later the white guy gets bitten in an elevator and turns into a zombie within five minutes. Three days, right. A guy gets his guts eaten out and would probably be pretty gross if you were three years old. More zombie shooting, the woman gets into the helicopter on the roof. Then the black guy, in a sudden burst of energy, charges with his fists of fury through the zombies with really embarrassing A-Team wannabe music playing full blast. He makes it to the roof with ease and they escape. The end.
The zombies are the slowest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Dead people in real life can move faster than they do. The characters aren’t really introduced; just thrown at you, uncaring of whether you like them or not. The black guy is just a guy you don’t care about, the first white guy is just a guy you don’t care about, the out-of-uniform guy is just a guy you don’t care about, and the woman is a stupid bitch. The zombies are composed of several million people that stumble around with white donut powder on their face. The movie drags on as it’s over two hours and it makes you just wish it would all be over. Maybe Romero’s intention was to see how many suicides he could afflict before the movie ended.
-10/10 (0/10)