Dawn of the Dead takes place ten years after the events of Night of the Living Dead. The mysterious phenomenon of the dead coming back to life to feed off the living has continued unabated. Social order is dissipating and the situation is becoming worse.

Fran, a TV producer is planning to escape with her traffic reporter boyfriend, Stephen in the TV station helicopter. They are joined by a SWAT soldier and friend of Stephen’s, Roger who brings along Peter, also a SWAT soldier. They are basically on the run and come across a shopping mall. They make their way in via the roof and make their home there. The power for the mall is still on but zombies are roaming around the place still. Roger and Peter decide to take their chances against the zombies and go on a mission to get what they need from within the mall. Later, they go on a mission to seal the entrances of the mall with trucks so that no more zombies can get in and then kill the zombies that are already in the mall.

The film itself is perfect. Whereas Night of the Living Dead was a perfect time capsule of the start of the zombie phenomenon within Romero’s universe, Dawn is a brilliant and genius depiction of what happens a decade later. Whereas Night is beautifully shot in black and white (although the first time I saw the film it was a colorised version, but that’s another story), Dawn is brightly coloured. In fact, the colour palette of the film is turned up to eleven and something to behold. The blue of the zombies and the red of the blood look massively artificial and they’re supposed to. Dawn looks like Pop Art, almost as if Andy Warhol had his Marilyn portraits and Campbell’s soup cans in mind and decided to make a modern-day zombie flick.

The music is provided by Goblin but also with tracks from the De Wolfe library music library being used. This all works fantastically well and heightens the sense of Romero knowing that Dawn is firmly in the realm of cult cinema.

All four characters are brilliantly written and acted with each having a character arch of their own whether it be the bromance between Peter and Stephen or Fran asserting herself against being seen as a ‘den mother’ to being able to fire a gun and learning to fly the helicopter. Stephen learns the hard way that the consumerist nirvana they find themselves in is just a hollow pipedream. In fact, he quickly realises that life is now irrevocably different as Fran turns down his marriage proposal and their relationship disintegrates quickly after this.

In fact, the mall and consumerism in general play a big part in the social commentary that Dawn espouses. Having the latest gadgets doesn’t make life as perfect as depicted in the media but rather just shows what a big lie it is. Whilst the zombies and the breakdown of society can be seen as a source of horror in the film, the other is the mall. The avarice and greed of the four main characters are brought out by suddenly finding themselves the sole humans in a veritable paradise. What good is having the latest of everything when the rest of the world has turned to shit? Also, when the biker gang later appear, Stephen is heard saying to himself, ‘It’s ours! We took it!’ when defending their kingdom.

This is another aspect that I love about Dawn- the main four characters are human and thus, flawed. Their worst aspects come to the fore when they seize the mall and they start out in the movie’s narrative as people on the run. ‘We’re thieves and bad guys!’ says Peter as they set off in the helicopter. Rather than helping their fellow humans to try and reassert order in this horrid new world, they are stealing a TV station helicopter and thinking about just themselves.

Whilst Dawn provides brilliant social commentary, it also effortlessly ventures into the action genre. In fact, I’ve seen fans online argue that they see Dawn as a gory action movie rather than anything else. There are also fantastic comedic moments within the running time. Check out when they switch on the mall musak and when we first get to see the zombie nurse and Hare Krishna.

And it was the gore that set Dawn out from other films, especially at the time of its release. The unsung hero of the film is special effects and make-up maestro Tom Savini. Dawn acted as a showpiece for what he was really capable of and he must have felt like a kid in a candystore. The gore is exceptionally done and provided problems for censor boards the world over. In America, to avoid the dreaded X rating, the film was released Unrated, at that time an exceptional thing to do. In Britain, the good old BBFC demanded extensive cuts for its cinema release. These were carried out by the distributor but then on rewatching the cut film, the BBFC then demanded even more cuts! They even suggested that their in-house editors (I’m alarmed the BBFC had ‘in-house editors!) cut the film to save time for the distributors.

Dawn would then be involved in the Video Nasties moral panic. It would eventually be released legally on video in 1989 and this was the version I saw. And it was butchered! Thankfully, the film is now available and uncut here in the UK. There are 4 different cuts of the film with all of them being released in 4K by the ever-brilliant Second Sight label.

Dawn of the Dead was released as Zombies in the UK and as Zombi in Italy (the film was produced by Dario Argento). Lucio Fulci made Zombi 2 which wasn’t a sequel but is still a great film but not as good as Dawn (Zombi 2 is known as Zombie Flesh Eaters here in the UK and would also cause trouble for the BBFC).

There’s a great documentary called Document of the Dead that was made during the shoot of Dawn. Also, check out the excellent film novelisation which is very different in parts to the finished film(s).

A micro-teach on Dawn I gave as part of a teaching course is here- https://youtu.be/rf6T6chRs6E?si=otCGCFMEz72wO2lY

Dawn is just as much a masterpiece as Night but whilst having a completely different feel. The next film in the series would be 1985’s Day of the Dead which I don’t think is anywhere as good as the first two films (there are plenty of people online who have given me a truckload of grief for having this opinion!)

5 out of 5 stars