Dawn of the Dead (United Film Distribution Company, 1978)

As a televised debate between two prominent figures devolves into a shouting match, anger towards scientists and racial tensions soar. The government fails to mount an effective response to a global health crisis, and the nation remains in lockdown as a deadly virus sweeps through cities and towns.

Alas, this is how George A. Romero begins his timeless 1978 independent horror film, Dawn of the Dead.

And the film is timeless: It explores racial issues, feminism, consumerism, the power of the media, and the nature of social order itself.

It’s nothing like Zack Snyder’s shitty 2004 remake, which is a meaningless action film bereft of any of the thoughtfulness or subtlety that permeates Romero’s masterwork. It is about as artistic as a giant vinyl decal that says “2 Wycked.” Fuck you, Zack Snyder. You entirely missed the point. If you like the 2004 remake, you are a bad person, and I hate you. So much. That will be the last I write on the matter, and so I do not feel the need to add “1978” every time I reference to this film, because as far as I’m concerned, the 2004 film never happened. So there.

I think I lost where I was going with that.

In any event, Dawn of the Dead comes from a bygone era in filmmaking when less was more.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, you’re projecting. This is just a zombie movie that happens to have inspired a lot of other zombie movies. You’re seeing things in it that aren’t really there.”

Sure, whatever. Get the fuck out of here, Zack Snyder. We already talked about this.

You really should watch this movie and not dismiss it’s commentary simply because it’s one of the most fun movies ever made, in a horribly depressing kind of way.

Fun but depressing. I can relate to that.

The Medium is the Message

Dawn of the Dead literally begins inside a Philadelphia TV station that is frantically trying to keep content on the air. As one host – a doctor of an unspecified variety – shares the scientific facts as they are known, his co-host moralizes to challenge him on every point, providing comfortable platitudes but ultimately incorrect and dangerous counterpoints.

This issue of science denialism persists through the movie. Eventually, the TV stations go off the air and the emergency broadcast network takes over. Apparently the only program they play is some guy debating an egghead with an eyepatch.

Quote the egghead: “This isn’t the Republicans versus the Democrats, where we’re in a hole economically or we’re in another war. This is more crucial than that. This is down to the line folks, this is down to the line. There can be no more divisions among the living!”

One would think that people could set politics aside and come together during a worldwide health crisis.

Oh wait.

This debate continues without resolution until the station stops broadcasting.

On the note of “less is more,” Romero uses television and radio broadcasts to create an expansive world. He provides hints at what is happening in the world at large, but leaves it to the audience to fill in the gaps. We hear reports of martial law, of cities are going dark; we see as broadcasts appear increasingly haphazard. His focus remains on the characters and their plight.

There are no rumors of a cure. Nobody in the group has inside knowledge about the nature of the zombies. There is no illusion of salvation. Despite portraying a world that could easily feel inauthentic, Romero’s focus on our “heroes” and their moment-by-moment choices keeps the film gripping and even realistic.

Just as in the real world, we form impressions of what is happening elsewhere based on what we can glean from secondhand information. This includes not just the information itself, but how the information is conveyed. And when we are cut off from that flow of information, well, that is when we truly feel alone.

Waiting for the Barbarians

What fascinates me about the 70’s is how it just sort of… sucks. Not only is it home to new challenges like Watergate, stagflation, and not one but two oil crises. but it’s ALSO got to deal with a whole bunch of reverberations of things from the 50’s and 60’s that didn’t quite work out as expected.

Consider, if you will, the advent of public housing projects. Pruitt-Igoe, the gleaming spearhead of affordable housing projects built in 1954, had to be demolished in the 1970’s because they failed so spectacularly. Sure, Pruitt-Igoe was doomed from the start due to an inadequate funding strategy (or just plain ol’ inadequate funding), but picking through the contributing factors of complex social problems require careful study, consideration, and the vulnerability to admit imperfection. But we are bored by rhetoric and public speaking. We just want to watch fast zombies running around chasing things and violence for its own sake! I’m Zack Snyder! Ahhh!

Of course, it’s much easier to blame the poor for laziness and for allowing their housing project to come to ruin. It’s also easy to look at what the less fortunate were given and be resentful that you don’t seem to have things as nice as they do.

This tension regarding race and public housing is the second scene that Dawn explores. In-between spouting racial epithets, Wooley, one of the leaders of a zombie control team sent in to pacify a housing project, laments, “How the hell come we stick these lowlifes in these big-ass fancy hotels anyway? Shit man, this is better than I got!”

Romero notably (and controversially) featured a black protagonist in this film’s prequel, Night of the Living Dead (1968). He continues this trend with Peter (Ken Foree), who stops Wooley dead. (Yes, pun intended.) Peter is the most sane character of the bunch and a rare example of a minority lead at all, let alone one that isn’t forced into stereotypes and is written like a fully developed human being. He laughs, he cries, he celebrates, he mourns. He also happens to be the smartest one in the group, and if everyone would have just listened to him… well, things might not have gone all 2020 on their asses.

So is Fran (Gaylen Ross). A leader at her TV station, she is initially relegated to the status of “den mother” by her stupid boyfriend Stephen (David Emge) and, to a lesser extent, Roger (Scott H. Reninger). However, when a napping Stephen wakey-wakeys from his slumber, he takes her gun and runs down to play cowboy to go “help” the real soldiers. Well, she gets kind of pissed off that she almost got eaten by a Hare Krishna because she was left defenseless.

I feel the need to qualify my statement about Stephen being a dipshit. Here are some examples:

• Not demonstrating basic firearm safety, like pointing guns at people on his side.
• Not making sure his gun was loaded before relying on it in a dangerous situation.
• Running around a mall being chased by zombies while carrying a whole binder of information about the mall when he really only needed one page.
• Almost leading zombies up to the group’s hideout.
• Having social skills akin to a caffeinated 11 year old with an autism spectrum disorder.

Apparently the final straw is a conversation in which Stephen and Peter discuss giving Fran an abortion without like, you know, having her be part of the conversation. This pisses her off to a point where she asserts herself, which in turn immediately pisses Stephen off because he’s a whiny little bitch and he’s upset that Fran just got promoted to “human” and he just got demoted to “woman”.

Don’t forget – Roe v. Wade – 1973, just four years before the release of this movie!

Romero hits these topics head on with sincerity and gravity. The only gravity Zack Snyder has is the kind of stuff that makes things fall down so they can explode. Fuck you, Zack Snyder, you piece of shit.

Practical Effects

I feel like I’ve done a lot of selling this movie as a thought-provoking prestige piece about social issues, which would not be entirely accurate. It is also a zombie movie and chock full of awesome fucking special effects. The kind of special effects I can only imagine Tom Savini put together after crushing a few beer cans and high fiving the shit out of everybody standing around.

Now I remind you, this is 1978. For reference, Apple was founded in 1976. Digital effects weren’t a thing, because digital things were barely even a thing. That means you didn’t have many choices if you wanted to show something like a skull exploding, or a guy jamming his head into active helicopter blades, or a guy taking a machete to the head. (You know, now that I think about it, there’s a lot of violence directed toward the head region.) You could figure out a way to create real life practical effects to simulate a head injury, or you could just cause one for real and film it. Unfortunately, Zack Snyder wasn’t available at the time to support the latter.

If you don’t know who Tom Savini is, he is a legendary special effects makeup guy, and Dawn was the first film to rely on his work. I mean, the amount of violence in this movie is astounding, and Savini lead it all.

So, now you know who Tom Savini is. He’s also in the movie, playing a notable bike gang raider.

And so many squibs were used. I can only imagine Tom Savini walking in to a drug store and saying “Yeah I’m going to need like 5,000 condoms.”

You’re god damn right you are, Tom. You’re god damn right.

A Whole New World

One of my favorite shots in the film is all of maybe two seconds long, and it’s one shot in a montage in which a regular guy in a business suit is in the midst of a bunch of zombies.

Beyond the media landscape explored earlier, I am continually impressed by subtle elements that make Romero’s world feel so grounded. A sign in an abandoned hanger that says, “Joe – headed toward Druckers farm.” A guy in the redneck army with his head bandaged, suggesting that he was bitten and will eventually turn on his unsuspecting allies. The ways in which the zombie psychology demonstrates small memories or interests.

In fact, there are a number of zombies that are sort of characters of their own. The Hare Krishna I mentioned earlier, though I’m not sure how a zombie is any different. (Har har. Low hanging fruit.) A nun zombie. A zombie I presume is republican based on how much he loves guns. Business zombie!

I dunno, I’m not gonna harp on this one. Every moment in this film is packed with characters making choices that almost always feel authentic. Many of them are wrong. Some plans are good, but they still don’t go as expected. Danger lurks around every corner: A bullet could ricochet. A shot could miss. Stephen could try to help. Anything could turn to disaster at any moment, and those moments do happen.

The characters are searching for safety and a sense of normalcy. But once they’ve found it – or an approximation of it – what does that normalcy even mean? Just whittling away the time.

The End is the Beginning

Dawn of the Dead is a film that meaningfully explores mortality. In a world of movies with saccharine endings designed to make the audience feel good about the $15 they paid to get in, it’s refreshing to watch a film that embraces honesty. Even when it’s ugly. Especially when it’s ugly.

We are all going to die. I know that me bringing it up is not what you want to read in a movie review, and I know it’s certainly not what people want to talk about on first dates. Come on baby, don’t you want to be in this forever?

Anyway.

Not everything works out. Sometimes we have to choose between our sense of decency and what will give us better odds of survival. Sometimes the good guys die and the bad guys win.

The original ending of the film as written depicted the death and/or suicide of the remaining characters. With this lens, it is easy to see how and where those suicides would have happened. While this might seem like a more depressing and vis-à-vis more “realistic” ending, I think that the ending ultimately chosen was the right one. We aren’t given answers as to where the zombies came from, or given evidence to think that mankind will survive. We don’t get a resolution in the traditional sense.

It’s probably not a movie you’ll walk out of and feel “satisfied.” There are no ultimate answers other than the only one we can be sure about: at some point, our remaining heroes will die. Does this happen immediately after we cut away? Do they live for years and go on to support a long-term effort to rebuild society?

We don’t know. But we don’t need to know. The story has only one true ending.

In the end, the mall ends as it began: Occupied for eternity by mindless forms clinging to a place they flock to without understanding why.

And you thought it was just a zombie movie.

Verdict

Buy this movie. Be sure not to buy Zack Snyder’s piece of shit remake, though. Unless maybe you’re a zombie.