Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Director: George Romero
Cast: Ken Foree, David Emge, Scott Reiniger, Gaylen Ross
Memorable Line(s): "The dead get up and kill. The ones they kill get up and kill."

* A Guilty Pleasure *
It's 1979, I'm going into the theater not really knowing what to expect and this is what I got:
- a zombie biting into a women's neck,
- a person's head being blown off with a shot gun at point blank range
- the top of a zombie's head being cut off by the blades of a helicopter
- zombies ripping out and eating someone's entrails
The list could go on and on.

And the bottom line is that I loved it. I was back the next week to see it again and then even went to the drive-in with a group of my rowdy high school friends to see it yet again. With the exception of "Blade Runner," this is the movie I've seen most on the big screen and I've seen it on in the small screen too many times to count.

If that's not an endorsement, then what is? Of course, it's not for the faint of heart.

With all that being said, "Dawn of the Dead" is a movie that is much greater than the sum of its parts, too. Made by George Romero on a shoestring budget in his hometown of Pittsburgh, the film picks up where Romero's original shocker, "Night of the Living Dead" left off. A mysterious plague had descended on the earth, possibly from outer space (but what does it matter?), that re-animates the recent dead into flesh eating creatures with little or no intellect. And that's when the fun begins.

The audience's perspective on the disaster comes through the eyes of four characters on the run -- two cops, a TV news producer and a helicopter pilot. They escape the big city to the countryside just as law and order is breaking down completely. Not having a real plan, they finally end up landing and taking harbor at a large indoor shopping mall. The place is filled with undead types and our rag-tag teams spends quite a while securing the mall and dispatching the zombies. Then comes existence after an near apocalyptic societal breakdown and all that its not cracked up to be.

Their unhappy, but comfortable life is interrupted by a literal invasion of a horde of bikers who want what are heroes have. Our heroes have the choice to cut and run or defend what they have come to call home. They choose fight instead of flight, much carnage ensues and that leads to a war in which everyone looses.

The film is more complex than just a zombie attacks humans horror movie. It's a tale of survival and the choices we make when push comes to shove. There's also a subtle undertone of commentary on our consumer culture that deepens the message of the film.

But if your zombies along with graphic blood and gore are your thing, this is the movie for you.

[NOTE: This movie was remade with a bigger and better budget in 2004 and to go against the outcome of many remakes, it is quite good and very horrifying, even more so than the original.]