Dawn of the Dead, 1978

The second film in George Romero's original Dead Trilogy, although not a direct sequel, fact there are no connections to each other in the trilogy other than zombies! With how the titles of the films go, Night being the start/early days of the dead coming back to life. Dawn being set in middle/height of the problem becoming too much and then finally Day representing the last days of humanity.

Dawn follows a group who leave everything behind to escape the chaos that is happening around them. We have Fran and Stephen, a couple who work for a local TV station that decide to use the stations helicopter to run away in. We also have Peter and Roger, two SWAT police officers, Roger being friends with Stephen and has arranged to go with them. He brings Peter along with him after meeting him earlier during an operation in the down town projects.

On their travels in the helicopter, they see how far spread the zombie problem is and following an incident while refuelling that they need to be always on their guard. They eventually come across a shopping mall, where they find a room via the rooftop that they can hold up in for a bit.

In time they make and secure the entire mall and make it their home, however losing Roger along the way. Eventually more time passes, and they become more like prisoners stuck within the walls of the mall until one night the mall is raided by bikers who destroy everything they did to keep the zombies out. Peter and Stephen try to defend what they can but it's too late and Steven is bitten by zombies. The film ends with Fran and Peter escaping in the helicopter with the zombies taken over the mall and wondering around mindlessly window shopping.

I think we can probably thank Dario Argento for this film as he had heard Romero was doing a sequel to Night of the Living Dead and help get some funding for the film and even got Romero over to Rome for a change of scenery while he wrote the script. He also got some distribution rights for Europe, plus helped with ideas for the script. Dario also edited down the film for the European market to make the pacing faster as he thought the original cut of the film was a bit too long. He also did some of the soundtrack with the band Goblin, though what part he played in that I'm not sure if he played an instrument or recorded it. They are listed in the credits as The Goblins with Dario Argento!

There are three official cuts of the film:

The Directors Cut (also known as the Cannes Cut) - 139 minutes

US Theatrical Cut - 127 minutes

Argento Cut/European Cut (released under the title Zombi) - 118 minutes

All three cuts can be found on many of the Dawn boxsets that have come out over the years, currently Second Sight (if you like in the UK like I do) have a great set out for it.

There is a fan version called The Mall Hours/Extended Mall Hours which is 155 minutes, though I've never seen it. I assume it’s been edited to include everything from all three versions of the film. There are other versions out, but they are one that have been edited and cut in different countries. In the UK on video the head explosion scene was cut (though reinstated on later releases) and I think at one point the scene where Peter kills the two zombie kids at the airport wasn't allowed due to the Dunblane massacre.

I recently found out that in one of the Japanese releases that the film starts off with a short explanation to why the dead have risen, it's basically a link to Night of the Living Dead!

The special effects despite coming off a bit comic, with the blood being a bit more like melted crayons than real blood, are great. All done by the legend that is Tom Savani, in the old DVD I had, it came with commentary by Savini and I loved how he explained for some of the headshots he used a button from a shirt and a lid from a tin can and a bit fishing line to help make a headwound from a gunshot in some of the scenes. He also mentions one of the dummies he made up got the police involved when it was on display at a local shop for Halloween (don't have this DVD anymore so going off memory!) as it was very realistic but that only proves how good Savini's special effects are!

It gets mentioned a bit that Dawn can be seen to having some social commentary to it with I suppose the rise of consumerism, which is highlighted in the scenes where they all enjoy the mall after getting rid of the zombies and sealing it shut from the outside world. With their new found "wealth" within the mall they don't want to give it up at all.

The ending where the bikers raid and trash what's left could be like what supermarkets have been like with Covid over the last year and half!

When they first come to the mall they discover all the stockpiled food and water in what later becomes their home and they question what is this and why it's there. In the book that came out when the film did, it explains that the owner of the mall, who they later find dead, had been doing this, hoping himself to live in the mall. Like the total opposite of the residents of the projects at the start of the film, they have nowhere to go and can't stockpile and with the soon to be collapse of the government they are left to defend for themselves.

The ending of the film was supposed to be a lot grimmer with both Peter and Fran committing suicide rather than being ripped apart by the horde of zombies. Think Peter was to shoot himself and Fran was to jump in the helicopter blades with being shown that even if they did make it out on the helicopter there wasn't enough fuel as the blades slowly stop whirling onto the onset of dawn. 

This was all changed to both escaping in the helicopter and Peter asking how much fuel to which Fran replies not much!

Again, in the DVD I had, Savini states that they did film the Fran suicide scene, though Romero had always said they never. I don't think any photos of this scene have been shown (if it was filmed) so guess we will never know for sure. Though I kind of believe Savani as they made a cast of Gaylen Ross' head and that was used in the exploding head scene in the SWAT operation at the start of the movie.

Dawn of the Dead, to me is one of the greatest horror films ever made. I first saw it when I was either 11 or 12 and BBC 2 were showing it late on a Sunday night. I taped it as I had school the next day but ended up staying up anyway up to about 2am watching it. Next day I couldn't stop thinking about it and how excellent I thought it was, I more likely couldn't stop going on about it to my mates! That VHS that I taped it on got a lot of wear over the next year or two before I finally picked up my first copy of Dawn on DVD!

I'm not really one to geek out over stuff, but Dawn is one of the only films where I have a lot of junk for like multiple copies of the film, soundtrack, couple of t shirts and bought a small original Japanese poster for and would probably buy other tat if I find it! I did also see Goblin play, though they only played a small section of their soundtrack to Dawn!

Speaking of the soundtrack, as great as the Goblin soundtrack is, I really love the library music used as well, think the majority of it was taken from the De Wolfe library, which some got released on Trunk records and a fuller version released as part of the Second Sight boxset. Very good release as for many years had wondered what two tracks were called and finally know they are Cantando by Peter Merrick, a classical(?) guitar piece and Fugarock by Derek Scott which sounds like a prog rock banger (I imagine a video of a church hall and village life when I hear it due to the organ being played in it!).

Dawn did get a remake in the early 2000's, when I first heard this I pretty much horrified as how could you remake an absolute classic without it being shit! Most remakes today are pretty poor. However, I was actually impressed with it when I saw it, I would say it's more a remake in name only as it isn't a shot for shot remake.