Dawn of the Dead
                                            (1979)
                                 review by Red Velvet Kitchen

Perhaps the finest of all three, Dawn of the Dead’s zombies rampage through the overtly symbolic shopping mall, stalking, chewing on and spitting out the remains of the consumer driven society that Romero appears to despise passionately.

Creating a men-on-a-mission style outfit, Romero encourages the viewer to experience a strange place of occupancy. He involves us in the plot and the emotional-blender fed characters, but ensures we’re detached enough at times in order to reject this motley crew. Throughout, Romero places a scene of high tension and claustrophobic dread next to one which explicitly unveils the more human horrors on offer. So, the pointless (in terms of the film’s ideology) clash between the bikers and the survivors holed up in the mall is juxtaposed with scenes such as the transformation of a main character into a zombie, this inevitably sealing his doom. The feeling is that Romero is letting us care about the feelings of the characters and their survival sense, but not allowing us to identify with their wider plight and their theorising. Wanting the humans characters to survive the ordeal, but ultimately being dismayed by their presence and behaviour. Supporting the humans in a facile way, on an emotional level. Rejecting them on a plain more cerebral. Romero plays about with his audience throughout, tossing in tension, off-colour comedy, emotional turmoil, intense suspense and gory horror often in a passage of a number of scenes. The range on offer generally is vast, with Romero proving that an action film can be amalgamated with intelligence, wit and keen satire (likewise with a horror film). The expertly staged zombie onslaughts alternating with the sinister singular critter threat is handled with aplomb, shifting the danger from a more personalised horror to something overwhelming and overpowering. In particular the scene in which a zombie stalks in an underground matrix of pipes is effective, as the editing makes it awkward to know where exactly the zombie is in relation to the prey.

One thing is certain though, there are no heroes in Romero’s world, only differing degrees of villain. In one debonair and remarkable sequence our gunslinging heroes decide to practically make this shopping complex their home, feeding from the abandoned restaurants and stealing the clothes that have hanging unattended for weeks. Watching these action men regressing to bourgeois comforts in a time of mass crisis is unnerving, switching from the bloodshed of before to the equally off-putting world of designer furniture and clothes. Viewing the isolation of this small group, almost delusional in aim, with echoes of the amassing dead (and recently killed) is truly disturbing, managing to infect the experience because of type of scenario Romero is choosing to debase: That strange sense of satisfaction one receives from materialism. It’s at this point that the film collapses in a heap of helplessness, the characters now having nothing to live for, save idle and irresponsible pleasures, happy to self-satisfy rather than face the truth of the mounting problems outside of their pristine, sanitised
environment. Whereas in other horror films the survival aspect is highlighted with the protagonists having a reason to survive (and in terms of film dramatics, a reason to die) through their ordeal, emerging the right side of the stormy waters, Dawn does not have this safety clause. The ostensible heroes are in their own way, as repellent as the zombies, the two often sharing similar base instincts. All the people in Dawn of the Dead appear to live for is the sort of cosy yet negligible existence that the film rejects. No-one has a passion for life anymore, a genuine will to struggle through this. It seems that we latch onto the humans merely because their face and stature is more recognisable than the cold blue flesh the zombies possess, the distance between the living and dead rapidly
reducing as the film progresses.

The most memorable shots in Dawn of the Dead are one’s of great expanses which whilst usually filled with the blank faces of humans, shopping carts or motor vehicles are now overcome by marauding zombies. A car park empty apart from some shuffling feet and lazy eyes, indoor shopping centres with drone-like faces and hands pressed against the glass, peering at the glowing contents inside. Familiar images if you ever decide to visit a shopping complex on a weekend. This film is far more than simply a critique of our growing dependence on the crippling capitalism system and it’s like, this
merely serves as a metaphor for the general sense of impasse and lack of clarity and drive in people’s life. A world where people seem more at home in the places where they habitually shop, than in the arms of their loved ones, or out embracing their joie de vivre. In the harsh daylight (opposed to Night of the Living Dead’s darkness) the true ugliness and threat can be seen, no-one is perfect in Romero’s world. Accompanied with the straightforward visual style and banal characters, Dawn of the Dead like most horrors is about what you see, and most importantly, what you do not see. However, unlike most horror films, what we do not see is always staring you in the face, whether you can see it or not.