Best Horror Movies

Dawn of the Dead (also known as George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Zombie internationally, and alternately called Zombie: Dawn of the Dead) is a 1978 American / Italian horror film, written and directed by George A. Romero. The film stars David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger and Gaylen Ross. It was the second film made in Romero’s Living Dead series, preceded by 1968′s Night of the Living Dead, and followed by Day of the Dead in 1985. Dawn of the Dead contains no characters or settings from its predecessor, and shows in larger scale the apocalyptic effects a zombie epidemic would have on society. In the film, a plague of unknown origin has caused the reanimation of the dead, who prey on human flesh, which subsequently causes mass hysteria. Several survivors of the outbreak barricade themselves inside a suburban shopping mall.

Dawn of the Dead was shot over approximately four months, from late 1977 to early 1978, in the Pennsylvania cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Monroeville.^[2] Its primary location is set in the Monroeville Mall. The film was made on a relatively modest budget estimated at US$650,000, and was a significant box office success for its time, grossing an estimated $55 million worldwide.^[1] Since opening in theaters in 1978, reviews for the film have been nearly unanimously positive.

In addition to three official sequels, the film has spawned numerous parodies and pop culture references. A remake of the movie premiered in the United States on March 19, 2004. Labeled a “re-imagining” of the original film’s concept,^[4] several major themes, including the primary setting in a shopping mall, remain essentially the same. Cultural and film historians read significance into the film’s plot, linking it to critiques of large corporations and American consumerism and of the social decadence and excess going on in America during the late 1970s.

Following the scenario set up in the previous movie, the film depicts the United States of America struck by a pandemic of reanimated human beings, who now have no other desire than to feast on the flesh of the living. As in the previous film, the cause of the plague is not fully understood by the scientific community. Despite desperate efforts by the U.S. Government and local civil authorities to control the situation, society has effectively collapsed and the remaining survivors seek refuge. Although several scenes show rural citizens and military fighting the zombies effectively, cities, with their high populations and close quarters, are essentially deathtraps. Increasingly infrequent television and radio broadcasts imply that chaos is spreading throughout the country.

The film opens in the television studio of the fictional station, WGON in Philadelphia, where confusion reigns. Following some exposition— in which Stephen (David Emge), the station’s traffic helicopter pilot, and his girlfriend Francine (Gaylen Ross) plan to steal the helicopter in order to escape the zombie threat — the plot turns to another of the film’s protagonists, Roger (Scott H. Reiniger), as he and the rest of his SWAT team raid a tenement building because the largely Puerto Rican and black Caribbean residents are ignoring the martial law imposition of delivering the dead over to National Guardsmen and evacuating private dwellings.

The immigrants are slaughtered by the SWAT operatives and their own dead relatives, who emerge from their rooms after being reanimated by the zombie infection. During the raid, Roger meets Peter (Ken Foree), part of another SWAT team, and the two go down to the apartment building’s basement, where they meet a one legged priest who has just given the undead their last rites. They soon find the basement packed full of undead that the living residents had kept from being seized by the National Guard. After the two kill the zombies with shots to the head, Peter suggests they desert their SWAT team and flee the nightmarish city. Late that night, along with Francine and Stephen, they escape Philadelphia in the TV station’s helicopter, with the intention of reaching the safety of the Canadian wilderness. During their long flight north they pass over National Guard troops and redneck vigillantes who are combating zombies out in the countryside. It is shown that while the fighting in the countryside is being won against the zombies, cities have become deathtraps due to their tight quarters. The group stops for fuel where Stephen and Peter are both almost bit on separate occasions. Stephen tries to save Peter but due to his poor marksmanship, he almost kills Peter instead. Roger steps in and saves Peter with his M-16. Peter reprimands Stephen for almost killing him, but he relents and the group takes off.

They eventually arrive at a mall where they decide to stop and look for fuel and supplies. They climb down through the skylights on the roof into a hidden storage room filled with food. They decide to have a look around and see what else is in the mall. They kill a few maintenence personel and clear out the storage area. Stephen finds blueprints and the building’s keys, allowing them access to all of the stores. Due to the fact that zombies can’t run, they simply dash past them and into various stores to equip themselves with tools.

Stephen takes their last weapon and joins them. After Stephen narrowly escapes a small group of the undead, one of the undead moves up the stairs where Francine remains, making his way toward the weaponless Francine. The men in the group trick the undead toward a department store, then escape through an elevator air shaft. They make it back to the hideout in time to save Francine, but in her shock she is immediately skeptical of their new idea to make the mall their own private sanctuary. Despite her objections, they press on. Their plan to make the mall safe for habitation is to block the large acrylic glass entrance doors with semi trucks to keep the undead gathered outside the mall from entering, then destroying the remaining undead inside with ammunition they acquire from the mall’s gun shop. During the blocking of the mall entrances, the impulsive Roger acts recklessly, leading to him being bitten by one of the undead and dooming him — by the rules set in the previous movie — to a slow death and eventual reanimation.

After clearing the mall of its zombie inhabitants, the four settle in. The group indulges their every material desire as the undead paw at the mall entrances. As depicted on infrequent television broadcasts, society beyond those doors continues to collapse. Roger slowly succumbs to the infection, but asks Peter to wait to kill him as he wants to try “not to come back.” He does reanimate, however, and Peter finishes his friend.

As in other zombie films directed by George Romero, the scourge of living death is not simply spread by bites. In Romero’s films, anybody who dies for any reason – heart attack, cancer, gunshots, etc. – will rise as a zombie, unless their brain has been sufficiently destroyed.

The film skips ahead several months. Stephen has taught Francine how to fly the helicopter. Francine was earlier revealed to be pregnant, and her appearance provides a rough estimate of the time that has passed, as she appears to be near the end of the second trimester. By this time, all emergency broadcast transmissions from the outside world have ceased entirely, though Stephen clings to the faint hope of another broadcast. Stricken with boredom, the novelty of their materialistic utopia wears thin.

One night, however, the three survivors refuse to answer a short wave radio call from a malevolent biker gang who know of their presence and are intent on looting. The bikers break into the mall, in the process letting in hundreds of the undead. Angered, Stephen interrupts their plunder and initiates a battle with the bikers. In the end, several bikers and Stephen are bitten by zombies. Peter escapes unscathed. While Francine wants to flee immediately, Peter decides to wait to see if Stephen will return. Stephen quickly bleeds to death from a combination of gunshot wounds and zombie bites. Upon his reanimation, Stephen leads a large group of the undead toward Francine and Peter’s hideout. After killing Stephen, Peter helps Francine escape to the roof but says he does not want to flee. At the last second, Peter decides against suicide and fights off the undead approaching him. He reaches the helicopter as Fran pulls away from the landing pad. The movie ends with the duo facing an uncertain future as they fly away from the mall at dawn in the low-fueled helicopter. As the credits roll, there are multiple shots of the once again zombie-infested mall.

[edit] Alternate ending

The vaguely uplifting finale in the final cut of the film was not what Romero had originally planned. According to the original screenplay, Peter was to shoot himself in the head instead of making a heroic escape. Fran would commit suicide by thrusting her head into the helicopter’s propeller blades. The end credits would run over a shot of the helicopter’s blades turning until the engine winds down, implying that Fran and Peter would not have had enough fuel to escape.^[5] During production it was decided, however, to end the movie on a more hopeful, upbeat note.

Much of the lead-up to the two suicides was left in the film, as Fran stands on the roof doing nothing as zombies approach, and Peter puts a gun to his head, ready to shoot himself with a Derringer before suddenly deciding to live and escape with Fran. While Romero has said the original ending was scrapped before being shot, behind the scenes photos show the original version was at least tested.