We’re on Day 4 of OkGoreberfest’s 2025 30-day Horror Challenge! Today’s challenge, as mentioned on the original post from October 1st, is “The Greatest Zombie Movie.“
Wow, that’s a big category of horror! Since the original 1968 “Night of the Living Dead” there have been a squigillion zombie-themed movies, just so many! I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite genre, but it’s so pervasive a horror genre that one can’t help but to have favorites. Titles that come to my mind are Train to Busan, Dead Snow, Zombi, The Beyond, Dead Alive, Cemetery Man, Contracted, and Pontypool. My favorite is another classic, of course, George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.”
The original Night of the Living Dead was co-scripted by the original author, John Russo. When he and Romero parted ways after that movie Russo retained rights to the theatrical name “Living Dead” while Romero opted to title his sequel efforts simply as “The Dead.” As a result, the “Living Dead” movies that followed were in more of a horror comedy vein, while Romero’s “Dead” movies retained that more serious, human extinction event seriousness in theme. Ten years after the original, Romero made “Dawn of the Dead” and it serves as the basic keystone of modern zombie movies.
This was the mainstream introduction of Tom Savini as a major horror make-up and FX artist (and he stars in it as well, because of course he does), his effects are what set the tone for this movie and without them it and future themed movies just wouldn’t be the same.
The movie was another co-production, with George Romero sharing production credits with Italian horror royalty Dario Argento, who also contributed to the scriptwriting. When the final movie was released in the U.S., Romero would score the movie with stock music while Argento’s European release of the film would be scored by his regular source, prog-rock band “Goblin.” I’ve never seen that version but boy would I love to.
Dawn of the Dead was released in 1978 in an unrated form, because the MPAA was going to award it nothing less than an X rating (which is usually reserved for hardcore porn in the U.S. and would destroy any possibility of commercial success). It was also added to the U.K.’s list of “Video Nasties.”
Dawn of the Dead is a direct nose-thumbing to American consumerism and mall culture, and was filmed in a Pennsylvania shopping mall. That’s how I always discerned the difference between this movie and the other countless zombie flicks of the 80’s: It’s “The Mall One.”
Last year some college goober in a dumb hat approached my partner and I in Charlottesville’s outdoor mall, asking if we wanted to be in his new zombie movie that he would shoot on his phone as people in a store would run out yelling “The Packs! The Packs!” We declined, because that’s fucking stupid, and I’m guessing so did everyone else because he later resorted to busking with balloon animals on the street rather than cellphoning his horror masterpiece.
Dawn of the Dead, decidedly better mall zombie movie. It’s superior in every way to its predecessor “Night of the Living Dead” (not many horror sequels share this distinction), and nearly 50 years later it’s still super fun to watch.