Dawn of the Dead



Director: George Romero
Writer: George Romero
Cast:


The second movie in Romero's "Dead" trilogy is perhaps the best. Dawn of the Dead takes place just after the zombie explosion. Although zombies are growing in numbers and beginning to "take over" major population centers, cities are still highly populated and many people still live in their homes. Four people, two of them SWAT team members, decide to take a helicopter out and get away from Philadelphia, which is almost entirely lost to zombies. They end up at a mall, where they take over and for a while have a really nice setup.

It's been said by Romero that he has always had a soft spot for the zombies, since they really don't know what they're doing any more than any other feral carnivore, and it really shows in this film. There is a certain pathos exhibited here. Despite that they are essentially dead (as humans), and that they have no need or conceivable use for any material possessions, the zombies wander the mall due to the phantom wisps of memory that they still possess. It's almost a despondent attempt at remembering and reliving what is long gone and forever out of reach for them.

In addition, there is social commentary running through the zombies' patronization of the mall: we need many of those products mindlessly plucked from the shelves scarcely more than they do...just a thought...

Anyway, I especially liked the partial decapitation of the zombie at the airfield, I liked the general mall-seizing idea, and the whole apartment complex part, as well as most of the rest of the movie. I disliked the way some of the characters acted at times, and thought that the paramilitary biker gang was kinda corny (what kind of motivation did they have for doing what they did? I mean, really? Are they going to sell those items they stole to some zombie who killed the owner of a pawn shop or something?), but that's okay. Can't be perfect, now can we?

Anyway, this one's a must-see, and that's that.