Financed upon a tiny budget and filmed in a farmhouse inhabited by the crew, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead crept onto audiences during 1968. The directorial debut for Romero, Night of the Living Dead birthed the modern zombie genre. Ten years later, Romero released Dawn of the Dead. The zombies of Romero’s original film have morphed into an apocalypse as four survivors flee the chaos of Philadelphia. Stumbling upon a shopping mall, the group seemingly find an oasis amid the end of days. Yet is the mall paradise, a prison, or a tomb?
The undead of Romero’s three original zombie films were a mirror, held up to society and trapping the contemporary zeitgeist. Dawn of the Dead swirls with the tumult of the fading 1970’s. Echoes of Vietnam, police violence and racial divides filter into the Dawn of the Dead. The central figure of Francine channels feminism and abortion rights as she transforms into a prototype of the final girl figure within Horror. The zombie hordes engulfing the world are a corporeal reflection of looming nuclear destruction as the East and West remained braced within a Cold War.
The state of Philadelphia is one of complete disarray within the film’s opening. SWAT teams raid a minority populated tenement unwilling to give up their now reanimated dead. Harking to the image of the “crazed” Vietnam veteran, one of the SWAT team turns on both the living and the dead. By contrast no one in power is in control. The ineffectiveness of the city’s rulers is symbolised by the local news station, as managers enraged by the chaos are met by apathy from their crews. The two sides form into one image, a city besieged by violence, crime and ineffectual rule. It is the perception of the 1970’s inner city through the eyes of middle-class America; a den of vice and danger best avoided. Being either journalists or policemen the flight of the four survivors represent a fleeing of authority from the inner-city, as repeated by other authority figures while Philadelphia collapses. Shunning the city, the group find paradise in safe suburbia, taking up residence in a mall. Yet the mall, a pinnacle of consumerist culture, ultimately nullifies its residents; its bounties rendering them as brainless and dependent as the zombies which paw at its gates. Condemning gentrification, Dawn of the Dead’s suburban dream of plenty is more destructive than the urban “real” which its survivors escape from. Dawn of the Dead is the counterargument to John Carpenter’s Halloween. Released a year after Dawn of the Dead, Halloween charts the rampage of a supernatural serial killer against teenagers in suburban Illinois. Behind its teenage immorality, Halloween is the fear of the inner-city invading and despoiling the sanctuary of suburbia.
The inventive effects and the zombies may have aged, but Dawn of the Dead remains unsettling. The greyed flesh of the undead, carmine globs of blood and extracted innards have a hallucinogenic quality as the zombies are felled or tear apart the living. The visceral shock of Dawn of the Dead has receded, but the film depicts in discomforting detail a society in its death throes. The inspiration Dawn of the Dead was Romero being informed while visiting the Munroeville Mall that the mall was the best places for survival if the nuclear bombs dropped. Atop his original idea Romero crafted a grounded narrative of social breakdown. The viewer witnesses the slow disintegration of order as despair and the rising dead mounts while citizens quietly abandon the larger urban areas to wait things out.
The central characters of Dawn of the Dead are likeable and believable as Romero takes his time to establish each individual and the fault lines within the group. Through the group’s initial flight and their exploration of mall the divides appear between military and civilian backgrounds, while establishing each character’s flaws and strengths. None are natural born survivors and rely upon each other as much as their own skills. My favourite characters are Stephen the helicopter pilot and SWAT officer Roger. It is their skills forethought which ensures all four survivors escape the city. Yet once in the mall John becomes the weakest of the team, unable to fend off the dead, while Roger struggles with the toil of the past weeks. By upending the initially strong characters, Romero leaves the viewer uncertain as to who will survive while the letting the group’s dynamic realistically shift. Credit is also due to the actors who portrayed Dawn of the Dead’s group of survivors. They each throw themselves into their respective roles especially as they begin to unravel within the confines of the mall.
There is a deeper poignancy within Dawn of the Dead’s story. Behind the bloodshed, apocalypses can be the ultimate power fantasy, completely unshackling the individual from society’s rules. The group’s refuge within the mall is a lesson of human want. Only as the world ends around them do the survivors gain everything they could desire. Surrounded by endless material wealth, their spoils seemingly turn to ashes, and each among them craves escape from a mall they now see as a prison. Once satisfied, human want shapes itself into another drive.
You may struggle to find access to Dawn of the Dead in the U.K. The film is absent from streaming services and is unavailable to rent on digital platforms. DVDs have ceased to be printed but a limited Blu Ray and 4K Blu Ray release did happen this year . If you are looking to watch the film, a second hand copy is the best route to watch and is well worth the effort.
By Saul Shimmin
Title Roll Reviews 