George A. Romero didn’t invent the zombie movie with Night of the Living Dead, but he certainly popularized it and solidified the tropes of the genre. I remember watching it when I was just a kid – maybe 13 or 14 years old – and absolutely loving it. I didn’t even mind that it was in black and white, something I usually hated at the time. It was one of the first films that made me realize that movies could be more than just mindless entertainment. They could be art. They could make you think.
I didn’t see the other two films that made up Romero’s original zombie trilogy until years later. I first watched Dawn of the Dead in a large theater in Strasbourg, France. It was dubbed in French and I don’t speak the language. I missed a lot of the nuance of that film in that first viewing but I still loved it.
I don’t remember when I first watched Day of the Dead, but I remember being disappointed with it. I suppose that’s only natural as Night of the Living Dead was so formative in my cinematic development, and that viewing of Dawn of the Dead was so wild, whatever other reasons there were I’ve long since forgotten but I haven’t watched the film since.
It is streaming on the Criterion Channel as part of their visual effects in horror series and I decided to give it another go. I’m glad I did as I quite loved it on this viewing.
Like the first two films in this loosely connected series Dawn of the Dead drops our characters into an isolated, static setting and surrounds them with zombies. Once again two factions form within this setting and they two debate, and scream at each other over what’s the best way to come out alive.
The setting is a World War II-era, underground Army base. The two factions are scientists who want to find a cure for zombie-ism or at least figure a way to make them less brain-hungry, and a bunch of military dudes who just want to blow the zombies away. Trouble is they are vastly outnumbered and limited in ammo.
As always Romero’s view of humanity is bleak. We are the true monsters in these scenarios. To drive that point home one of the scientists, mockingly called “Frankenstein” (a name that isn’t too far off for as we will see, he’s gone a bit mad) has trained a zombie to realize some basics of its humanity. He seems to remember how to use a razor and seems to enjoy music. In doing so it has become less brain-hungry. Meanwhile, the Army dudes just want to blow it up. They also regularly threaten to kill the scientists if they don’t obey orders. In a wonderful bit of irony, one of the army dudes is later killed by the trained zombie in the same place they chained him up.
The underground setting creates a wonderfully claustrophobic environment, while still giving the characters plenty of places to run and hide. It is a great set design as it feels very much carved into the depths of the Earth. Some walls are made of concrete blocks, others have been left as solid rock. The deeper they go the more cavernous it is.
Romero creates a wonderful sense of mood and tension. We can almost smell the desperation of these characters. And he’s expanded his ideas on what it means to be living in a zombie apocalypse. In the previous films, there was a sense that things were somewhat under control. That the zombie outbreaks were isolated. Sure these particular characters were screwed, but maybe no humanity. Here, these people may be all that’s left.
The script could be a little tighter, especially the dialogue, and the acting leaves a little to be desired. There are a lot of scenes where everybody is just shouting at each other and it is exhausting. But overall it is a thrilling bit of cinema.
And those gore effects by Tom Savini are some of the best there’s ever been. My favorite is when one character has his head pulled off, as his larynx is stretched his scream gets pitched higher and higher.
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