dawnofthedead

Over twenty years before Fight Club, director George Romero gave us a more subtle , more intelligent look at mankinds obsession with consumerism. Dawn of the Dead is the second part of Romero's zombie trilogy, and opens in a chaotic television studio. The world is falling to pieces because of a phenomenon that causes the dead to come back to life, and attack the living. With all of this going on, the station manager is still more concerned

with television ratings than the stations role in guiding refugees from the plague to safe areas. The stations traffic reporter, Stephen, enters the studio, and tells his girlfreind Fran to be on the roof in an hour, so that they can escape to Canada in the traffic watch helicopter. Meanwhile, in a seedier section of Philadelphia, a bunch of Swat guys are raiding a hispanic tenement whose residents have refused to leave for much safer rescue stations even though the city is under martial law. Some of the hispanics come out with all guns blazing, and a huge firefight ensues. After it's all over, Roger, a swat officer who is good freinds with Stephen, tells another swat team member , Peter, about his plans to leave Philadelphia in the chopper. Peter decides to go along. The two head to the police docks, where they meet Stephen, and Fran ( they also meet some cops including Day of the Dead star Joe Pilato). They head off into the sky as all the lights go out in 'Philly , effectively ringing the death knell for the city.

Tensions rise between Peter and Stephen, when they stop for fuel at an abandoned airstrip that is full of zombies. Stephen, who is a terrible shot ( ironically David Emge who played Stephen was a Vietnam veteran with a lot of experience with firearms), almost shoots Peter when he trys to shoot a zombie. They fortunately make it out of there, and fly over a zombie shooting festival comprised of cops, the national gaurd, and gun-toting volunteers. This scene is shot documentary style, adding great atmosphere and realism to an otherwise implausable situation. They then land on top of the gigantic Monroeville mall with the intention of getting some rest. The attraction of the flashy consumer goods ( all of which are now irrelevant now anyway in their savage new world) is too great however, and they decide to try and seal off the mall, and make it their own glitzy consumer paradise. They are successful after a number of encounters with the living dead, who Peter theorises are drawn to the mall because it was the most important place in their lives. We see zombies longingly looking at toasters, t.v.'s, and other consumer items. It's almost as if Romero is depicting the flesh eating ghouls as the ultimate consumers. Although they do want to eat our heroes flesh, it really seems to take a backseat to their browsing through the unlocked stores, and their vacant gazing through shop windows of the locked stores. When Roger is bitten in one attempt to seal off one of the malls exits, and infected with the zombie bug, it seems such a pathetic waste for a bunch of useless knick-knacks.

This is one of those movies I saw when I was a kid, and really missed the point of until I got a little older. It may sound a little preachy, but the message really is subtle and never overrides the comic book action and violence. It really is an accurate snapshot of the late seventies, when in Australia at least, our obsession with credit cards, and the buy now, regret it later mentality really started to take off. I think that is really where Dawns appeal lies. It has to be the greatest horror movie of all time!