16 October 2012

shop till you drop.

24. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

If there were a Horror Movie Hall of Fame, George Romero's Dawn of the Dead would surely be one of the inductees. It has earned its reputation not only on the basis of its face-value storytelling, but also from its foregrounded social commentary—which, I have to admit, has been a little overstated and mythologized over the years. It's true that Dawn touches on themes like racism, proscribed gender roles, and consumerism, but the points that it makes—if they even have enough substance to be considered 'points' at all—are mostly trite and obvious. But as I understand the prevailing viewpoint, we should simply be grateful that anything like a zombie horror flick bothers with such commentary to begin with. The standards are admittedly pretty low in a genre generally content with amping up the scare factor at the expense of character development or sociological depth, so the argument is reasonable: I am thankful that George Romero had greater ambitions than creating a mindless splatterfest—not that mindless splatterfests don't have their place too—but I am less impressed with the banal thesis that consumer culture zombifies us than I am with the time and narrative space he gives to his characters. No, this isn't an Ingmar Bergman psychodrama—and the characters remain mostly true to type—but we get to know these four protagonists very well in the course of the two-plus hours we spend with them, and this raises the stakes for the viewers. Dawn of the Dead isn't just a novelty or a visit to the funhouse; it's a fully-realized human drama.



For me, Dawn of the Dead is the comfort food of the horror genre. I have to be honest: it's really not very scary—which might automatically make it a failure in the eyes of some horror fans—but whatever the movie is or deserves to be categorized as, I love watching it. The real sense of dread that it achieves is a function not of the imminent threat of the zombies, but of the more profoundly existential crisis of being left alone in the world. As time passes and more people turn into zombies, the remaining human life becomes more isolated and alone. It's frightening to imagine yourself as the last person on earth—and if you're cut off from all the others, you might just as well be. 



But (as the photo above illustrates) you'll also find many of the familiar trappings of the horror film in Dawn of the Dead as well—if that's what you happen to be looking for. The special effects of course aren't quite up to contemporary standards, especially considering the film's minuscule budget, but there's enough viscera to keep gore addicts interested, I think.  

14 comments:

  1. Hi,David. I am horror's fan and I likes this movie !!1! But you use 2 mnay big words. Just fuckings say I DINST LIKE IT or SQUEE!! cuz that is what I get. Yay zojmbies!! 4eva

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  2. Wow, that guy's a douche. I just saw this movie for the first time EVARRR (4 days ago). I liked it a lot better than the first Romero (Night of the Living Dead), but I don't think I will continue seeing any more Romero zombie movies.

    Hey! Did you know that Romero's original intended ending for this film was for everyone to die? After Fly Boy got eaten, the black dude was gonna kill himself and the Molly Ringwald lookalike was gonna crash her helicopter or something. I think. I made up that last part but I swear they were all gonna die.

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    1. Molly Ringwald lookalike? I don't see it.

      I love how Fly Boy is all emasculated because he can't aim a gun. Pussy.

      Why aren't you going to watch any more? The third one Day of the Dead is good. (The others are skippable.)

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    2. I dunno, it's like the Evil Dead series. They just go on and on. I also only saw the first two installments of that.

      You don't see this?
      http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EqMG0t0vo6k/SVHBRX_alOI/AAAAAAAAAp0/ITTWYKV7snA/s320/3762981_tml.jpg
      http://graffitiwithpunctuation.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Molly-Ringwald.jpg

      It could also just be that Ross's character reminds me of Ringwald's from The Stand.

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    3. There are only three Evil Dead movies, Morais. Get your facts straight. And the third one Army of Darkness is a fantasy-comedy. There's really no horror element to it at all. (I don't like Army of Darkness, by the way.)

      No. I still don't see a similarity b/w the two, but I've never seen The Stand.

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    4. No, I think they are still making them. Isn't there a fourth installment in production right now? That's why I didn't bother seeing the third because I knew there's going to be a fourth. And probably a fifth. And so, fuck it.

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    5. No, the new one is just a remake of the original. We know that Hollywood will dry hump every old idea until it has wrung the last penny to be made out of it. It's ridiculous how many horror classics have been remade.

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  3. Wow, those two guys are douches. OH! Guess what I saw last night which was freakin' awesome? Grindhouse: Planet Terror. It's by that Robert Rodriguez guy that did Sin City. It was cool because it was presented like a 1970s exploitation film but with a modern twist (complete with "missing reels" during sex scenes and screen static), which is sort of meta, I guess (even though I'm so sick of seeing people use that word.) But it was pretty damn funny and really well done. Just picture Rose McGowan with a semi-automatic machine gun in place of a prosthetic leg. Yeah, that good.

    META!

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    1. I really like Planet Terror a lot. It's fun. But te other Grindhouse film Death Proof is the only Quentin Tarantino film I don't love. It's kinda dull.

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    2. I disagree, but you already know that.

      (But yes, Planet Terror is better than Death Proof.

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  4. P.S. You need to protect your blog from douches. They are EVERYWHERE.

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  5. I liked Death Proof! When Kurt Russell is all scared... he was so believable.

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