Review: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

(aka Zombie)
Directed by: George A. Romero
Starring: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger
Written by: George A. Romero
Music by: Goblin
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray (Second Sight); DVD (Anchor Bay)
IMDb

Let’s just get this out of the way: I’ve never been a tremendous fan of George A. Romero’s zombie flicks. For a while there, Day of the Dead (1985) really did it for me, with its incredibly realistic, inventive, and bountiful gore and nihilism, accompanied by John Harrison’s psychedelic synth tones. But Night of the Living Dead (1968) is mostly just an important piece of film history and Land of the Dead (2005) and I weren’t ever a match. I pretend nothing exists after that. Dawn of the Dead — to many, Romero’s greatest achievement — definitely has significant sentimental worth.

In high school, I had a buddy who was a year older, able to drive, and cool (lucky) enough to have a “movie room” in his house. In this room, there was a plethora of horror on VHS, mostly films I was vaguely aware of but had not yet seen at that point — Peter Jackson’s early stuff, some Dario Argento, and this. Prior to sitting down in his movie room, smoothie and junk food in hand — watching raptly as a SWAT team smashed down the door to a zombie-infested apartment building and began killing everyone in sight, undead and still alive, propelled blindly forward by bloodlust and prejudice — my taste in horror was primarily focused on monster movies and the catalog of Charles Band. Dawn introduced me to a new breed, heady and bleak with something more on its mind than tits and decapitations. From there, I was drawn to a new corner of the genre that was home to more European and underground films.

So, in that respect, this movie — about a small group of survivors holed up in an abandoned mall as a zombie apocalypse spreads — was very important to me. But I quickly realized it wasn’t something I loved dearly. It’s too long at 127 minutes. For a movie that’s deadly serious, there are a lot of moments that are really, achingly silly, like Roger, twice in a matter of about 60 seconds, shooing Flyboy out of the way to properly double-kill a zombie, the dim SWAT dude in need of a cigarette, the pie attack, the Buddhist zombie, the off-toned blood and skin, the tragically lame banter between the three male heroes, the never-ending volley of body shots when everyone knows to go for the fucking head, and Goblin’s sometimes Acme Corp.-hued score. And, though it’s not goofy, per se, Peter’s brief moment of suicidal ideation near the end is completely forced and doesn’t fit his character whatsoever. To this day, these things don’t sit well with me.

But I’ve grown to really love its portrayal of societal collapse. Dozens of zombie movies have tried it, to show those small moments when humanity lets down its guard just enough to be overrun by the undead. But even the best of them don’t do it as sharply as Romero does here. There are so many little instances of the hubris that becomes our downfall, from the rednecks making a drinking game out of zombie hunting to Roger’s doomed truck heist to a supply ransacking that gets out of control. Romero, when he’s on point with his writing, expertly leverages those modest instances, when we think we’ve got it all under control, to ratchet the stakes. And even some elements that at times sink the flick end up as surprising buoys later. Scott Reiniger’s Roger is cocky nearly to the boundary of farce, but his deathbed braggadocio is much more tragic because you can recognize it as last-ditch desperation. Romero’s tendency toward non-sequitur pads the runtime and can test audience patience, but a romantic dinner scene does incredible character work in just a couple of minutes, even though it does nothing to forward the plot.

Dawn of the Dead, though not quite a masterpiece to me, is definitely George A. Romero at his purest. His brilliance and overindulgence are here, streaking through the mall with no shame, along with his propensity for social commentary with subtlety veering between a toothpick and a pickax.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10