Bloodtype Online

    Dawn of the Dead, which is a follow up to Night of the Living Dead, continues the story of the dead rising from the grave to feast on the flesh of the living.  Only this time instead of an isolated farmhouse the action starts in the city.  The action opens in a television studio where “experts” are debating what to do about the problem of the dead rising.  Here we are introduced to Fran and Stephen.  Fran works at the station and Stephen is the pilot of the traffic helicopter.  Stephen lets Fran know that they are going to try and escape the city in the helicopter with a friend of his.  The action then moves to a SWAT team that is laying siege to a tenement building where the tenants have been keeping the reanimated corpses of their loved ones.  After a bloody fight we are introduced to Stephen’s friend Roger, a member of the SWAT team, who invites another member named Peter to join them.  The four of them make good their escape and end up landing on the roof of a shopping center.  They take the place over after kicking out the zombies and live peacefully until a group of roving bikers come to loot the place, which allows the zombies back in and causes all hell to break loose! 

    Like I said Dawn of the Dead is hands down my favorite movie.  While Night of the Living Dead might of created the subgenre of the modern zombie movie it wasn’t until the success of Dawn that the zombie subgenre really got going.  And while many filmmakers tried to copy the movie they all missed out on what really made Dawn of the Dead the great movie that it is, which would be the complexity of the story.  The pretenders all tried to meet or exceed the gore from the film, but none of them comes close to the story.  I’ve always looked at the movie as being book ended by two great action sequences.  You have the tenement/escape/taking of the mall sequences to begin the film and then the biker attack to end the movie.  In between you have the four characters dealing with living in the mall under the constant threat of the zombies they have locked outside.  Spoiler Alert: A threat that is made all the more real by Roger’s slow decline and death from his bite.  It is here that the Romero’s commentary about consumerism is also added to the movie, either from the “shopping” scenes, the bank full of now useless money, or the desire of the mindless zombies to come in and wander around the mall.  I’m as big of a fan of gore and gut munching as the next guy, but this is my favorite part of the movie.  It is also what makes Dawn of the Dead different, and much more enduring than any of the clones that followed it.   

    Of course you can have the best script in the world and it won’t mean a damn thing without a great cast.  Dawn of the Dead focuses on the four survivors Stephen, Fran, Peter, and Roger.  All four parts were cast perfectly and portrayed by the actors with a great deal of skill.  Gaylen Ross holds her own in the role of Fran, the female lead.  Unlike Night’s Barbara, Fran wants to know how to defend herself.  Ross brings strength to the character that was unusual for an American horror film, and I would like to point out a full year before Alien.  I’ve always felt that Ross never received the proper credit for her performance, which is a damn shame.  Scott Reiniger also does a great job as Roger.  Of all the characters Roger is the one part that requires a great deal of range.  He starts off as a serious character, gets a bit crazy and careless, and then slowly dies on camera.  Reiniger does a great job handling all of these emotions realistically, which is why Roger is my favorite character in the film.  Ken Foree is also very good as the badass serious SWAT officer Peter.  While his role doesn’t require the range that Reiniger’s does he does get the best lines!  Foree’s performance and his “take” on the character of Peter also adds much to the foreboding feel of the movie.  You can see by the look on his face that he believes that the world is ending and is going thru the motions.  The character of Stephen aka flyboy isn’t given much to do, but David Emge is still very good in his role.  I’ve always seen the Stephen character as more of a foil for the Fran and Peter character.  In that way the character and Emge’s performance is very important to the movie.  Plus Emge has the best zombie walk in any of the Romero movies.   

    Of course we can’t talk about a zombie movie and not mention the special effects.  If you look back at the Romero zombie trilogy of Night, Dawn, and Day the effects in Day overshadow those in Dawn.  Over the years I’ve heard many people complain about the grey zombies and the color of the blood looking too fake.  I’m old enough to have actually seen Dawn of the Dead before Day came out and this hasn’t ever really bothered me.  I think that some of the gags in Dawn like the screw driver to the head, the blood pressure machine, and the exploding head are just as good as anything I’ve seen in any of the Dead movies.  I suppose the mass of blue faced zombies might look a bit silly, but Romero has said on the record many times that he was going for a comic book style and look with Dawn, which is also why the fake blood looks like it does.  While it might not look realistic it does fit with the overall feel of the film.  So while not as ultra realistic like Day the gore in Dawn still delivers a good punch to the gut (no pun intended).   

    This was a very difficult and intimidating review for me to write.  I love this movie so much that I wanted to make sure that what I wrote for the site was worthy of such a great film.  I hate how much the term “classic” gets thrown around, and don’t even get me started on how annoying the term “instant classic” is.  But in the case of Dawn of the Dead this is truly a classic movie that has stood the test of time and is still as powerful today as it was thirty years ago.  Of course if you haven’t seen this movie then I recommend that you go out right now and watch it.  I recommend the ultimate four-disc edition of the movie.  I highly recommend this true classic of the horror genre. 

Rating - ****

- John “El Juan” Shatzer