Zombies are the most overdone, overused monsters in horror movie history, and with good reason. The walking dead represent humankind’s biggest fear—death—and its slow march to consume us all. But with all the films dedicated to these rotting, shambling flesh-eaters, how can one pick a single zombie movie and call it the best? Quite easily, actually: it’s Dawn of the Dead.
Not the 2004 Zack Snyder remake—although that’s a perfectly fine movie in its own right, fast zombies aside—but the original 1978 classic.
“One of the most compelling and entertaining zombie films ever, Dawn of the Dead perfectly blends pure horror and gore with social commentary on material society.”
–Rotten Tomatoes‘ critical consensus for Dawn of the Dead
Despite the hundreds of zombie movies that have come out in the 45 years since Dawn of the Dead, none have managed to utilize zombies as effectively—both as a social allegory and in terms of sheer terror. Every zombie movie since 1978 has used George Romero’s blueprint in some way, from Return of the Living Dead to 28 Days Later. They all owe a debt to Dawn of the Dead.
That’s because zombies as we know them today wouldn’t exist without George Romero. He quite literally defined the version of zombies that litter the pop culture landscape to this day.
Before Night of the Living Dead, zombies were considered a Haitian concept involving the resurrection of the dead through magic. Romero is the one who singlehandedly redefined them as flesh-eating corpses who could only be killed by destroying the brain.
But Night of the Living Dead, classic that it is, represents Romero’s first draft when it comes to the flesh-eating ghouls that would come to define his career. The zombie’s abilities to use tools and their fear of fire would be dropped from all of George’s later works, including his masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead. Consider Night almost like The Hobbit to Dawn‘s Lord of the Rings.
The greatest zombie movie ever follows two SWAT officers — Roger and Peter — as well as traffic reporter Stephen and his TV producer girlfriend Fran as they attempt to survive a zombie apocalypse.
The group flies around in Peter’s helicopter, observing the carnage below them and searching for a safe place to hold up when they find an abandoned shopping mall. Figuring that the mall will have plenty of food and any other supplies they might need, the gang of survivors decides to land on the roof and check it out.
Further complications occurred when the mall put up its annual Christmas decorations, forcing the production to shut down for three weeks in order to avoid continuity errors.
The group manages to empty the mall of zombies and block all of the entrances so no more can get in. Roger gets bitten by a zombie during the process, but the four of them soldier on and quickly treat the mall like a capitalist paradise, indulging in all of the amenities offered by the various abandoned stores. Roger and Peter form a bond that could be construed as more than just hetero buddies, but it’s left up to the audience’s interpretation.
Roger eventually succumbs to his bite and goes full-on zombie. Peter insists on being the one to kill the zombified Roger and buries him afterward, with tears streaming down his face. A biker gang comes across the mall and decides to invade the surviving trio’s little utopia with predictable results.
George Romero wrote and directed Dawn of the Dead, while horror makeup and visual effects god Tom Savini was responsible for all of the limb ripping and disembowelment onscreen.
If Dawn of the Dead has a flaw, it’s that Savini made the zombies too blue-looking and the blood an unrealistic bright orange color. Savini would create the definitive zombie movie look for 1985’s Day of the Dead, though ultimately, Dawn is still the better film.
The movie stars David Emge as Stephen, Ken Foree as Peter, Scott Reiniger as Roger, and Gaylen Ross as Fran. Tom Savini plays the boorish leader of the biker gang that takes over the mall late in the film, a role he would reprise in another zombie movie—albeit as a walking corpse—in 2005’s Land of the Dead.
The bulk of the zombie movie was shot in the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. The mall was still open, resulting in the crew only being able to shoot from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Further complications occurred when the mall put up its annual Christmas decorations, forcing the production to shut down for three weeks in order to avoid continuity errors.
Everything that would come to define a truly great zombie movie comes from Dawn of the Dead.
The movie was released in Italy, the home country of one of the film’s producers, Dario Argento, on September 1, 1978. Dawn of the Dead wouldn’t see an American release until March 27, 1979, and only after Romero convinced his American backers to release the movie without a rating. The MPAA wanted to give the zombie movie an X rating, which Romero refused to accept.
Dawn of the Dead grossed a total of $66 million worldwide during its initial theatrical run on a budget rumored to be between $ 650,000 and $1.5 million. The zombie movie’s success is especially impressive, given its unrated status.
Critically, the movie is adored as one of the greatest horror movies of all time, with a 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a consensus that reads, “One of the most compelling and entertaining zombie films ever, Dawn of the Dead perfectly blends pure horror and gore with social commentary on material society.”
Dawn of the Dead tackles issues that are as relevant today as they were in 1978. Police brutality and racism? Check. Rampant consumerism? Check.
In addition, not only does the film feature a woman and a Black man as two of the leads in the film, but Dawn of the Dead actually gives those characters agency and doesn’t treat them like tokens or stereotypes. And, of course, there’s the homoerotic subtext between Roger and Peter.
Everything that would come to define a truly great zombie movie comes from Dawn of the Dead. It introduced the tropes of zombies as a social commentary on society and humans being the real enemy. Even the montage where survivors hold up in an abandoned business of some kind and act like they just won a Nickelodeon shopping spree can be traced back to this movie.
Believe it or not, Dawn of the Dead is available to watch for free on YouTube. If you’re a fan of zombie movies and you somehow haven’t seen this absolute classic, go and check it out as soon as possible!
