Review #116: Dawn of the Dead (1978)


This review was originally written in October 2021.

October 2021 Horror Movie #2- Dawn of the Dead

Although I'd never seen this movie (I'd seen the 2004 remake, but I'll get to THAT in a few days) I definitely felt like I knew more about this one going in than the previous film, since this one really set a framework that a ton of other media would go on to copy for the next four decades.

First things first: this was a HUGE improvement over Night of the Living Dead. Where Night was slow, quiet, and relatively plot-free, Dawn has lots of dialogue, plenty of characters, events after events after events, and explores so many different concepts (whereas Night was basically just one). But Dawn also had lots of quiet moments too- the runtime was almost double that of Night so there was plenty of time to develop the characters and add some introspection- and I was struck by how much I felt like the characters were all fully-realized, three-dimensional people. I don't know how many other zombie films I've seen where a character actually has to stand there and decide whether they can shoot a zombie in the head (outside of a life-or-death situation).

I talked about how the previous movie felt "realistic" because the characters acted like what I think real people did, but also that the movie was kind of boring. This movie provides a great foil to that- in a zombie apocalypse, do I think people would be goofing around and showboating around these (strangely unimposing) deadly zombies? Probably not. Maybe, I don't know. But what I DO know is that it makes for a way more enjoyable viewing experience!

I don't really have a ton else to say about this movie, except that I think it was truly deserving of all of the praise it's gotten. I love how they dealt with society's reaction to the aftermath of a zombie attack (compared to Night, where the conclusion is basically "Yeah, it took us about a day but we killed all the zombies, no need to worry") and of course the foreshadowed realization that ultimately, the true villain and threat is the fellow man.

I look eagerly towards the rest of the movies in this series, though I have a sneaking suspicion this was the peak.

Overall Rating: 9/10 Helicopter Decapitations

Most Ineffective Zombie Weapon Ever: A pie to the face

(Seriously though, why did they throw pies at the zombies? I know they were clowning on the zombies because they weren't threatened, but you gotta imagine food was in short supply, right?)

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