"...smack
in the middle of what was to become the cultural gathering hole
of the American masses: the shopping mall. Patrons shuffle from
venue to venue. Glazed, hungry, drooling for what's on the other
side as the sound of Muzak, that zombiefied clone of a once living
composition, echoes through their minds. And once they get it,
they'll want more. They're never satisfied."
John Esposito on
Dawn of the Dead
"A third of
the movie was improvised. We would sit around and think, let's
tear his head off, or let's take a saw to his face and cut the
top of his head off. We would go to the shopping mall at seven
at night and leave at seven in the morning, and it was just the
best fun you can imagine. The joy and happiness came from thinking
of a way to kill people and then actually doing it. "
Tom Savini (make-up
artist/actor Dawn of the Dead)
You'd be hard pressed
to find a more rollicking, action packed, blood splattered film
then George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (AKA Zombie, 1979). While
a recent revisit to the classic film reveals a bit of aging, it's
hard to come up with a superior zombie film released in the last
twenty five years. 28 Days later, Resident Evil, etc. failed to
either raise a goose bump or engage the viewer in the plight of
its handful of survivors. Dawn of the Dead conveys an apocalyptic,
hopeless feeling missing from these flashy MTV style hack jobs.
At the core of
Romero's vision is the terrific Ken Foree as the leader of a renegade
band of survivors who find themselves claiming a mall and turning
it into an Eden. Once the zombies are cleared out and the mall
is secure the film turns into every kids dream. Shop after shop
free to the survivors to indulge their whims. They spend days
at the hilariously outdated arcade, shop for gourmet meals, help
themselves to an arsenal at the gun shop and generally have a
grand old time. That is until Tom Savini and a band of motorcycle
outlaws want in on the fun. Of course many critiques have been
written on the social stabs Romero takes on our obsessed consumerist
society. One trip to the local mega mall and you can't help chuckling
at Romero's observations.
To talk of Dawn
of the Dead you must obviously bring up the name Tom Savini. While
budget and time constraints reveal themselves with some of the
poorer made-up zombies, Dawn of the Dead is an extravaganza of
gore effects. Some of the highlights include the brutal arm and
neck biting zombie in the housing project, the helicopter scalping,
the machete to the head scene, the vicious attack on Fly Boy,
the infamous shotgun blasted head available in our gallery, and
of course the stomach stretching gut pulling finale. With a low
budget and extreme time constraints Savini pulled off some incredible
shit.
A
note on the remake. I have nothing against remakes that want to take
a film in a new direction, and/or when their steered by someone with
talent (Cronenberg's The Fly and Carpenter's The Thing obviously come
to mind) but when classic cult movies are remade in this glossy, bullshit
MTV-style it annoys the hell out of me. The most annoying part of the
Dawn of the Dead remake is that Romero has been having a helluva time
finding funding for his fourth Dead film. Obviously people love zombie
films and if someone would give Romero a decent budget and complete
artistic control, we'd probably have a classic on our hands. The least
we can hope is that the success of this remake will create a hot property
out of Romero and possible get him back on track.
"...smack
in the middle of what was to become the cultural gathering hole
of the American masses: the shopping mall. Patrons shuffle from
venue to venue. Glazed, hungry, drooling for what's on the other
side as the sound of Muzak, that zombiefied clone of a once living
composition, echoes through their minds. And once they get it,
they'll want more. They're never satisfied."
