Dawn of the Dead | The Pinnacle of Zombie Fiction

|Spoilers for Dawn of the Dead (1978)|

It’s the season of the witch! And no, I’m not talking about George A Romero’s underrated 1972 film. After the hit of the cult classic Night of the Living Dead in 1968, Romero went on a run with many underappreciated B movies, the aforementioned Season of the Witch/Hungry Wives (1972), The Crazies (1973), the depressingly dark Amusement Park (1975) which was considered lost media until its proper release in 2019, and Martin (1977) which is one of the most unique takes on the Vampire genre ever put to screen. Then, in 1978, Romero made what many consider to be his magnum opus as a director, putting all his guerilla filmmaking talents, his flair for editing and garish, Savani lofi gore into one film, this being Dawn of the Dead (1978). A watershed horror film, not just for cinema but for all mediums, Dawn  popularised  the modern Zombie archetype in a new way than Night did and changed the landscape for comics, TV shows and films forever. But to talk about Dawn/Romeros impact on modern media, we first need to go back to its humble beginnings. 

The word “Zombie” spawns from Haitian folklore as a corpse revived by magic or a sorcerer.Films in the  30s and 40s like White Zombie (1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) demonstrated this, with the latter showing zombies as corpses resurrected by the use of witchcraft and voodoo to become mindless drones to do the bidding of their master. With I Walked with a Zombie, there's a core theme of slavery and colonisation eerily present throughout the film's short runtime.

It was then over 20 years later that Romero’s Night of the Living Dead redefined zombies as flesh-eating ghouls who don't need voodoo to be resurrected. Its radiation is from a space probe, which is as sci-fi as a zombie apocalypse can get. Gaunt and pale-faced with black circles around their eyes, this interpretation of what would soon be called a zombie, but at the time were called ‘Ghouls’, clearly has similarity to the Haitian zombie and would start to draw comparisons. Partially inspired by Richard Mattheson’s I am Legend, Romero’s zombies morphed into its own kind of monster separate from the Haitian variants, and with a mix of many movies over the years like Return of the Living Dead (1985), zombies would be known as mindless, brain-eating corpses that wander aimlessly for more flesh to feast on.

We then arrive at Dawn of the Dead, a decade after Night and now in colour, making the zombies look more lifelike, ironically, than the ghoulish demeanour they have in Night. 

Romero had more filmmaking experience since his debut, but the same run-and-gun attitude that he would carry throughout the five decades of his career. Full of candy coloured, syrupy red blood and pie fights, the more campier entry in the franchise contains all the fun tone shifts and bizarre choices that make this a cult classic. The setting of a mall seems quaint from a 21st century perspective, but this is the first and strongest advocate for the filming location. The zombies wander around the Monroe Mall they used to shop in, their minds now mush with little memory of who they once were. Not too heavy handed with its themes of mindless shoppers and consumerism, which was soon to be an all time high in 80s America, and letting the location be a character for itself, the mall has become iconic, and video games like first two instalments of the Dead Rising franchise which take place within shopping complexes, are a clear nod to Dawn.

“They're after the place. They don't know why; they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here.”

One of the highlights of Dawn of the Dead is Goblin’s zany score. The Italian prog rock band, who are better known for their collaborations with maestro Dario Argento,scored both Dawn of the Dead and the Italian release of Romero’s Martin. You only have to listen to the track “La Caccia”, which is used in the truck scene, to get the tone the film is going for. Full of bright synths, a catchy riff, tribal heavy drums and a random break into spanish guitar section backed by a groovy bassline, it’s a mix between the macabre and the goofy. There are tracks that  have flavours of Carribean instrumentation that seem to link it back to the zombie’s Haitian origins whether intentional or not. There are tracks like “La Caccia”, or the goofy, vaudevillian-esque song titled “Torte in faccia” translating to “Pies in the face” aptly titled for the zombie pie fighting scene. Its music is a mix of slow droning atmospheric songs and fun upbeat tracks that make a fantastic contrast to each other. It's music that you wouldn't expect to hear in a modern zombie flick, but worked perfectly in the campy 70s romp, which is Dawn is to a tee.

Dawn of the Dead’s impact on zombie fiction has been understated and underappreciated since the modern zombie appeared on our screens nearly 60 years ago. It showed the different tones of what zombie fiction could be- silly, dark, campy with a bittersweet ending. The characters aren’t the most fleshed out, but it works in the movie’s favour. They aren't concerned about the past, only about staying alive in the present and trying to preserve what's left of their future. The four leads are all strong actors but it's David Emge who gives an all time performance when he is a zombie in the final stretch of the movie. His physical performance is outstanding and puts all the other zombie performers to shame in both this film and most other films. His rigamortis ailed body shuffling through the mall as his finger just about holds onto the gun and the way he drags his foot, it's truly impressive.

Since Dawn of the Dead has made 66 million at the box office from its cobbled together budget of 600,000 dollars, the film became a cult classic and helped inspire many other zombie media over the following 5 decades- games like Left 4 Dead, the zombie gamemode on countless Call of Duty titles, tv shows like The Last of Us, The Walking Dead (which has makeup done by Greg Nicotero, a frequent Romero collaborator) and Game of Thrones with the white walkers. References to Dawn of the Dead itself are in My Chemical Romance’s song “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville” from their first album, and there is a sampling of scenes on Gorillaz albums from both Dawn and Day of the Dead (1985). And, of course, there are the countless amount of zombie movies that have boomed in the 80s due to Dawn and then again in the 00s since 28 Days Later (2002) and Zack Synder’s remake of Romero’s classic in 2004- both of these, tonally on the darker, more raw side of what a Romero zombie movie can contain, have a more dour, gloomier worldview and faster paced zombies (much to Romero’s dismay) in a post 9/11 world. Meanwhile, Zombieland (2007) and Edgar Wright's sophomore film Shaun of the Dead (2004)  contain lighthearted humour, and the latter clearly has a love and appreciation for Romero’s film with its title and the character of Dawn.

Dawn of the Dead might not have the makeup of Day of the Dead that Tom Savani himself calls his masterpiece, or the overt humour of something like Return of the Living Dead, but the film has  stood the test of time due to its guerilla filmmaking talents, creating an atmosphere of despair and manic fun both clearly in the making of it and within the film itself that would, like a zombie virus, spread like wildfire. Seven years on from Romero’s passing, we should always look back and realise the cultural landscape we’re in due to his influence on the zombie genre. The first three films of Romero’s zombie saga are truly something to behold, all possessing their own unique tones, each one descending further and further into a world of pessimism and hopelessness as the film progresses, but always with that small candle of hope for the future in some form or another as Dawn shows the survivors flying towards the sunset.

We exist in a living dead world, and that's all thanks to George A Romero.

Dedicated to David Emge (1946-2024)

Written by Michael Tasker | IG: @thegoldenecstasy | LB: Haelcim