Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Eleven days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.
Eleven days to Halloween - Silver Shamrocks!

Welcome Boys and Ghouls to Month of the Living Dead, my thirteen day tribute to Halloween! Join me, wont you, as I watch the sinister and the silly, the morbid and the macabre, the violent and gruesome in a two week bloodletting that comes to a boil on the eve of all saints.

*cue thunder and lightning effect*

So sit back, turn the lights down low and get ready for today's presentation of. . . .

DAWN OF THE DEAD! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

*cue commercial break*

Who hasn’t, at one time or another, fantasized about running amuck in a shopping mall after the doors have been shut and the stores locked up tight? To have all of life's pleasures at my very fingertips - want a new leather jacket? Stroll down to the Wilson's Leather and simply pluck one off the rack. Bored? Sample some video game entertainment at the local Gamestop (or plug in some quarters at the arcade, if you were lucky enough to be at a mall with one). Bring along a three of your best friends, and you could live like kings.

We've all had that dream from time to time.

Of course the army of unholy FLESH EATING GHOULS just outside might put a damper on things.

Welcome then, to George Romero's cult classic: Dawn of the Dead, the second entry in his long running flesh eating ghoul versus humans with tasty brains movies. And again I find myself in a position of trying to cover ground that has been gone over so many times before that there can't be much left to say. And yet, I'll give it the old college try!

We pick up our story an undetermined time after the events of Night of the Living Dead (although through some cruel twist of fate, clothes have suddenly started sporting bell bottoms and wide collars), and humanity is not reacting well to an onslaught of flesh-eating ghouls. In a short space of time, the relentless zombie plague has pushed our carefully ordered society into a state of marshal law - as witnessed by the best opening to a movie I've seen in a long time with a chaotic television studio where a talk show degenerates into a shouting match between the host, his guest and the entire news crew, many of whom are throwing their hands in the air and walking out in frustration. It’s a fascinating microcosm of the world turning to shit right before your very eyes.

Like so many people around them, Fran (the studio floor manager) and Steven (the station's helicopter traffic reporter) decide to desert the rapidly sinking ship. Unlike the others, Steven has an ace in the hole - keys to the studio helicopter.

However, before we get caught in exposition overload, we meet the other two protagonists - SWAT team members Peter and Roger. After a disastrous raid on a zombie infested apartment tenement where a racist SWAT team member goes bananas and starts and blowing away everyone he sees - living or dead - and an entire basement of zombies feasting on the living - they too, decide to head for the hills before the final zombie apocalypse.

They search in vain for someplace safe, someplace the ghoul plague hasn’t yet spread to yet. They end up in an abandoned shopping mall, first only stopping over for a brief rest and some supplies - but the refugees soon realize that the mall could be made a stronghold to wait out the siege,

It's here where Romero shifts gears from a straight out horror movie to social satire, as the four are lured in by the promise of a consumer paradise where all they could ever need is theirs for the taking. Where the ghouls gather outside, driven by some primal urge to gather at a place that was an important part of their lives, where the undead shuffle from store to store in a stupor not to dissimilar to consumers in the real world, where the Elevator Music drones on, becoming a soundtrack to their lives and working in counterpoint to the horrific violence of the film.

Soon however the mall turns from a seventies shopper's paradise to a gilded prison, with two thousand zombie wardens just outside the walls. Romero masterfully gets you so caught up in living The Good Life vicariously through the four survivors - for a large portion of the middle act - that you forget that death lurks at every turn. That is, until he reminds you with a sharp blow to the back of the head, jarring you back to the reality of the End of the World.

It wouldn’t be a zombie film if we didn’t get the mandatory zombie massacre climax, and Romero delivers the goods in spades (he refused to make cuts so the MPAA would bump him up from an X to an R rating). As a biker gang descends on the mall (lead by effects wizard Tom Savini), arms and legs torn off, entrails spill out, lead flies and gunshots splatter in an orgy of gore. Will our four heroes live to see another Dawn, or will they share Bens fate and wind up on a bonfire of zombies? The ending holds out a slim hope for our survivors but it's a phyrric victory in a world in which things simply cannot get any better - at least not so long as the legions of the dead haunt the living.

The beautiful thing about Dawn of the Dead is how it works on so many levels. The flesh eating ghouls are believable, frightening, funny and objects of pathos. Setting the film in a mall, with the familiar stores (slightly less so now 30 years on now), fountains, escalators and ever present muzak is humorous, gruesome and ironic all at the same time. It’s a horror film, a comedy, a social commentary, and a melodrama, violent, funny, scary, and heartbreaking in one big package.

Not everything is perfect mind you (just where did the biker gang get those pies for the pie fight anyway?), but for the most part the movie works and it works damn well. It's iconic status as a horror movie classic is well deserved.

TOTAL BODY COUNT: 23
MOST MEMORABLE KILL: The Mexican biker in the blood pressure tester.
GALLONS OF BLOOD USED: 23
SPRING LOADED CATS: 0
THE MORON OF THE MOVIE AWARD GOES TO: Roger for his reckless behavior and macho posturing.
BREASTS ON DISPLAY: 0
BEST LINE: "When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth."

THE DVD -
Anchor Bay loves the double dip, and this movie is no exception. While not quite as bad as the endless releases of the public domain Night of the Living Dead, Dawn has a number of releases under it's belt. Of these, the Ultimate Edition is the superior one of the lot - and the one I'll be discussing here.

Included are three versions of the film, the American Theatrical Cut, the Extended Cut and the European Cut. The American version is the best of the three, cleaned up and looking great. Comparing it to my laserdisc, the colors are nice and vivid. There's a touch of grain in the darker shots - but considering that the film was shot on a budget, it's only to be expected. The sound is great - a nice 5.1 mix along with the original mono tracks. The score, provided by Italian progressive rock band Goblin, sounds nice and crisp and clear.

THE EXTRAS -
And you thought that NotLD was bonus feature heavy - you ain't seen nothing yet. For starters, we get two separate cuts of the original film. The 139 minute Extended Version is fundamentally the same as the 127 minute Theatrical Release version, with just a handful of scenes added in and more stock music and less of Goblin. Also included is the 118 minute European cut by Dario Argento. Argento recut the film for the European market, removing much of the character development and dialogue in favor of the action and violence.

(There is also a Japanese cut, with most of the violence removed, and a German version that compiles ALL the footage into one massively bloated project - although these two versions are not included in the set, I mention them for completeness sake).

We also get commentary on each film, Romero, Tom Savini, and DVD producer Perry Martin on the American cut, producer Richard Rubenstein on the Extended cut and principle cast of Ken Foree, David Emge, Scott Reiniger and Gaylen Ross on the European cut. Each disc also has its own set of extras, ranging from photo galleries to a handful of trailers and a commercial for the Monroeville Mall (where the film was shot).

The fourth disc of the set contains the massive documentary - nearly feature length itself - The Dead Will Walk

Finally, we arrive at the last disc, the disc with the real special features. Firstly, and most importantly, we have a brand new seventy-five minute documentary about the film, entitled ‘The Dead Will Walk’. It's a great documentary, nearly feature length itself, and is really in-depth and entertaining. In addition, we get a fun short - a tour of the mall headed by Ken Foree (and featuring the escalator zombie, recreating his famous stagger for a bunch of fans).

Really at several hours of supplemental material, it's hard to find fault wit this set.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Dawn of the Dead is, hands down a classic of the genre - sure it pales in comparison to the original Night of the Living Dead, but most movies ever made do. The comprehensive set is made with loving care by the fans for the fans. It's got thrills, chills, wit, social commentary and is a damn good story all wrapped up in one blood as hell package. It's good stuff!

Join me next time for another journey into the macabre. Until then. . . pleasant SCREAMS! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

*cue thunder and lightning effect*

My Month of the Living Dead reviews:
* THE EVIL DEAD
* NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
* PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
* THE FOG
* REVELATION OF THE DALEKS
* DAWN OF THE DEAD
* THE LAST MAN ON EARTH/HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
* DAY OF THE DEAD
* RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
* THE OMEGA MAN
* NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D
* THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED UP ZOMBIES
* LAND OF THE DEAD
* MASTERS OF HORROR - HOMECOMING
* 28 DAYS LATER
* WHITE ZOMBIE
* HALLOWEEN



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age