Dawn of the Dead review

 Number 402 on the top 1000 films of all time is George A. Romero's 1978 zombie horror 'Dawn of the Dead.'

Peter Washington (Ken Foree) and Roger Demarco (Scott Reiniger) are two police SWAT officers who forsake their posts, after seeing how the true horror of their situation. They join journalists Fran (Gaylen Ross) and Stephen (David Emge) in escaping the carnage. The four soon take shelter in a well-stocked shopping mall, but their problems are far from over.

Dawn of the Dead is generally regarded as a pioneer of the zombie horror genre. It's safe to say that it's had an influence of every single piece of zombie media that's come out in the last forty years. Yes, things have been streamlined and upgraded, but everything leads back to George A. Romero's classic. However, I think I have been spoiled by modern zombie horror. Maybe if I was watching this in 1978, having not seen The Walking Dead or 28 Days Later or Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead, I would have really loved this film. But I didn't enjoy it all that much.

First and foremost, the zombies were so non-threatening. They hobble and limp towards our heroes giving them plenty of time to get away. Even when the characters fall over, drop their weapons or are completely surrounded by the zombies, they still escape unscathed. They never felt like they were in real danger and that really killed any narrative tension. Narrative tension is a point we'll be returning to a while. Anyway, I can totally see why Danny Boyle had his zombies run in 28 Days Later. They were much scarier villains. And yes, I know technically they're not zombies, but you know what I mean. 

And, I know that this is one of the first proper zombie films and the characters don't know all the rules and zombielore, but they were all still so annoying. In a news broadcast, it is specified that you have to destroy the brain to kill the zombie, but the characters waste so many bullets by firing into the zombie's torso. And even when the undead are close enough to nullify a gun, the characters just run instead of pistol-whipping their skulls. Say what you will about the recent narrative direction of the Walking Dead, but the characters there at least know how to kill zombies. 

This is one of those films where a lot of conflict could have been avoided if the characters didn't make such silly decisions. Roger starts to lose his mind and takes unnecessary risks in an operation to barricade the shopping centre from any zombie superhordes. Similarly, Stephen wages a one-man war against the looters who come to ransack the shopping centre where he should have just stayed quiet and let them get on with it. As Peter identifies, the looters don't know they're there and would have easily left them alone. Roger and Stephen's recklessness gets them both killed. I get that being in a zombie apocalypse stops people from acting rationally, but it is a bit annoying when a character's stupidity is what pushes a story forward.

I also did take major issue with the shopping centre being fully stocked. That's completely unbelievable. Just take a look at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. As soon as shit hit the fan, people were emptying supermarkets and fighting over toilet paper. And we're supposed to believe that this shopping centre has just remained untouched? Okay, so the film is supposed to be a comment on the selfish capitalism that is so pervasive of our culture, which only adds credence to the idea that the shopping mall would have been looted in the first instance. It also killed off a lot of dramatic tension. We're not seeing our characters struggling to find water or food as it's all readily available to them.

Speaking of narrative tension, the film suffers badly from sagging-middle syndrome. After the characters have barricaded themselves into the mall and have all the supplies they need, the narrative kind of stagnates. Peter, Stephen and Fran soon go mad out of boredom and realise they have locked themselves in a prison. The boredom was translated through the television screen as I found myself losing interest. It was just lucky there was the gang of marauders to inject a bit of adrenaline into things.

 Although that did lead to one of the most puzzling parts of the film. After the marauders force their way into the mall, leading the way for a super horde of zombies, Fran wants to escape using the helicopter but Peter has lost hope and decides to stay behind. Only he changes his mind at the last minute and joins Fran on the helicopter. This seemed very out of character. He leads the survivors and always keeps them optimistic and on the right path. And yet we're supposed to believe that he just gives up at the end?

And, of course, the special effects weren't brilliant. Dawn of the Dead was made on a tiny budget and it showed. The fake blood looked closer to its constituent ingredients of corn flour and red food colouring than actual blood. It looked fake and tacky. But I guess, this was the 70's. And I have been spoiled by all the fantastic special effects and make-up that went into The Walking Dead  and 28 Days Later.

I do think that at the time this film would have been groundbreaking. But I'm not sure it holds up forty years later. Yes, it created a great precedent, but it's just been bettered and surpassed.