I love horror films. Always have and always will. Pure ghost stories like The Haunting to psychological chillers like Jacob's Ladder to out and out gorefests like A Cat In The Brain. But without a doubt my all time favourite horror film is George A. Romero's 1978 classic Dawn Of The Dead. I was 15 the first time i saw it. Id read all about it in Dark Side magazine so knew what it was about. It was on TV one night on Moviedrome on BBC2. I was excited as hell. The version screened was a BBFC approved print that had all the gooey bits removed but it still blew my mind. I was enthralled as i watched society crumble and all pretense of civilization fly out the window.
For those who haven't seen it (ye lucky feckers) the story goes like this. The Dead have returned to life for reasons unknown and are attacking and eating the living. A couple called Fran and Steven work for a news station and have decided to steal the traffic helicopter and fly north in a vain attempt to escape the carnage. Meanwhile a swat team has invaded a block of flats to try and get the religious residents to hand over their dead before the whole place gets infected and its here we meet swat team members Roger and Peter. Roger is a friend of Steven and is travelling north with him and Peter decides to tag along after the display of violence they have witnessed and taken part in. Eventually they end up in a shopping mall and decide to set up camp. That's all the plot ill give away.
The acting. The acting is fine, good in places and perfunctory in others. The main actors especially Ken Foree and Gaylen Ross get the job done, it's just some of the supporting cast earlier in the film are a bit painful to watch. Romero's direction though is great as always. Its a clear, well paced film, fast moving film that still makes time for characterization. Its never boring and there's always something happening to move the story forward. Its scary, exciting, tense, knowing, funny in places, absurd in others (custard cream pies!) There are scenes in it that have you thinking "Wow, this could actually be fun" and then you see something that flat out upsets the hell out of you.
The special fx by Tom Savini have held up well too. The silly blueish paint on the zombies and the cartoonishly coloured blood make the film feel vaguely comic book like and help make the, at times, horrific violence easier to swallow. The film shocked audiences in the late 70's. So much so that an uncut version wasn't available in Ireland until the dawn ( Get it! Dawn!! Ok, tumbleweed ) of the 21st century
Its far more than a horror film of course. Its an insightful dissection of machismo, of violence, of society and the taut threads barely holding it together and our modern day obsession with consumerism. And that's the reason why it has endured. Why its always cited by critics and is a perennial in top 10 lists. Because its more than a horror film. Its exciting and scary and actually makes you think. It has its cake and eats it too. Its a fucking masterpiece. It hooks you in with action and spectacle then engages your noggin with what lies beneath.
Romero is a very intelligent film director and writer. On the surface people might think his film are full of blood and guts and cheap thrills but there's always a subtext, always a topical commentary on events, always a brain behind the action. Jut look at Martin, The Crazies, his Zombie trilogy ( Dawn is the middle, Night Of The Living Dead and Day Of The Dead bookend it and are both excellent too), The Dark Half. All superb films. Even his sillier stuff like Creepshow, Monkey Shines and Knightriders never insulted the audience. That's why he still garners the film-going publics respect, even after his career sadly went into decline.
The film when i first saw it was of course recorded and re-watched a silly amount of times. Once i got a DVD player i was able to purchase an uncut copy from the states which blew my mind all over again. Over the years I've owned this on a VHS i recorded, a retail VHS, a slightly less cut VHS, an uncut DVD, an uncut DVD special edition and finally a blu-ray. Yup ridiculous. Whatever the next format is, i'll probably own a copy of it on that too. And more than likely I'll watch it when it appears on Netflix. But that is fandom for you.
