Dawn Of The Dead

Year: 1978

Grade: A-

Country: USA

Director: Romero

Review

this one’s a classic. it’s got a great soundtrack, amazingly good makeup and effects for the time, and some of the best acting in a horror feature that i’ve ever seen. it jumps right into the chaos which usually doesn’t work because there’s no baseline established, but i think romero pulls it off here. also, it’s a sequel to night of the living dead so, in theory, the beginning of that film sets up the normalcy. by today’s standards it’s remarkably slow for a horror film. i think it allows us more time to get to know the characters and to allow the thought of their reality to sink in. when they try to get back to a normal life by making their storage room domesticated or having a nice dinner, there is always, in the back of our minds, the thought of the dead walking the earth, or a gun rack on the wall, or a television without reception to remind us that things aren’t as normal as we’d like them to be. even though it is certainly a horror film, it’s not what this generation may consider a horror film because of the extended breaks from flesh-eating or zombies chasing the protagonists. in a lot of ways the film is a drama. of course, it’s also a comedy. and this balance is a strength of the film – there aren’t many horror films that provide laughs, scares, haunting moments, truly sad moments and an uplifting ending. add to all that a healthy dose of commentary on anything from race relations to the way we sleepwalk through life, and you have a bona fide classic.