Dawn of the Dead (1978)

If you read my review yesterday then you know my opinion on the first instalment of the “Of The Dead” series wasn’t particularly a great one, but my hopes were still fairly high for this zombie classic, so what did I think? Well in five words... NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT.

Dawn of the Dead is the second “Of The Dead” film, released in 1978. The first film’s commercial success allowed George A. Romero a significantly larger budget of $1.5 million and went on to become a huge box office hit for its time grossing $55 million worldwide. It stared David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Gaylen Ross, the plot follows their characters struggle to survive the zombie outbreak and finding an abandoned mall with enough resources to last a life time, only it’s overrun with hundreds of the undead and they’re not the only ones who want the superstore.

This film started off with a captivating and very well done opening scene which grabbed my attention immediately, you were thrown right into the chaos accompanied by a fantastic electronic score that added to the already high tense atmosphere. We meet two of the main characters in a pretty bland way which resulted in me not caring much for them all the way to the very end of the film. In my opinion it was the other two characters that really stole the show, introduced in a badass action scene which had me excited to see what else the film had to offer. All four of them perform very well as convincing and interesting people you root for and want to see succeed.

One huge improvement in Dawn of the Dead from Night of the Living Dead is the action, while what little of it was in the previous film was sometimes hilariously bad, I was glad to see that this film had actually very well shot and tense action, the gore and make up is pretty spot on if not for the really bright shade of red for the blood. Seeing someone’s intestines getting ripped out and then have the blood ooze out a few seconds later added to the realism, and that’s just to name one effect that caught my eye, many of the scenes where zombies bit huge chunks out of people was also very well done, it really made you wonder how they did it, and as a gore fan it was just a lot of fun to see body parts and blood fly everywhere.

When we arrive at the big shopping mall things only get better, in this confined space you really got to know the characters, all of them were unique and interesting, you could actually tell them apart unlike in Night of the Living Dead. It was just nice to have characters to love and relate to after how indifferent I felt about the characters in the previous film. It’s also in this part I realised how scary the zombies could actually be, while slow they were an effective and threatening opposition. I did have a small gripe though, how people reacted to zombie attacks was a little bit unrealistic, you’d know in real life it would be very different, hardly anyone in this film put up that much of a fight. “Oh no a few slow zombies are approaching better give up all hope and not try to fight back” It’s even worse when they have a gun, for example a scene near the end involved a guy with a big, powerful, rapidly firing gun. A huge hoard of zombies start to surround him and he shoots in front of him even though there are hardly any there, while behind him there is a huge pack of about 10 which he could easily just spin round and wipe out, instead he lets them grab him and puts up literally zero resistance. Other than that, stupid characters making stupid decisions was practically nonexistent, they acted as most people probably would, even if I did find myself sighing at a few parts.

The suspense was also improved upon in this instalment; I was actually on the edge of my seat a few times and overall quite impressed with its tense and frightening atmosphere. A wide range of emotion was achieved in this film, some scenes were emotional and dramatic, some were tense, some were funny and some were scary, all of them excellent.

When it came to the finale I had become invested and emotionally attached to the characters and story, I was biting my finger nails and even cheering at some parts, it was grand and fantastic, a great way to end a great movie. A more triumphant end over the previous instalment’s sombre one which in the end satisfied me a lot more than the last one.

Overall I was very impressed with this film, compared to its predecessor it was a vast improvement, achieving what The Night of the Living Dead couldn’t, plot and characters you really invest in, intense and well shot action, fantastic gore and make up and even detailed set design, the higher budget made for a significantly better film with a great score and great performances. If you’re a horror fan this is not one to miss.

8/10

Come back tomorrow where I will probably be a little late again, also I will have the first Bond review up, I know I said today but I miss counted. Turns out I start tomorrow, I can hear the theme play already.