by Laurie Barron

Created on: January 29, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

"When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth"

Intro

George A. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" is a movie which has come to define the zombie horror genre. When similar movies are released they are always compared to this. But why is this? Is it really that good? Time to find out...

Story

In the late 70's Zombies start to pop up and those biten by them become Zombies too. In the insuing panic, society collapses and people flee for their lives, escaping the cities in search of safety. One such group, two casters and two armed police officers escape in a helicopter and try to begin their lives again in a shopping centre. The majority of the film follows their lives here.

8/10

Action

This film was once considered brutal as it contained such savage depictions of wounds and violence. However, by today standards this film is a bit of a lame duck. The main reason for this is the zombies themselves. They move at around about 1.1 miles an hour and are easily knocked over by the slightest of punches. This is a poor premise for action as they are not very formidable opponents. In fact, it begs the question of how a society as armed as the Americans could have ever succumbed to these ridiculous creatures. However, the film does contain alot of gunfights as the shopping centre luckily contains a safari gun shop with bolt action rifles and revolvers which are used by our surivors to clear out the mall of it's zombie inhabitants. As well as zombie fights, the survivors fight raiders who come to the mall to steal stuff and throw cream pies at zombies (seriously they do) (no really I'm not joking).

1.2/10

Acting

The cast of this film are for the most part untalented. They are extremely wooden and do not portray any emotions of horror very well. Infact, I think only Steven Seagal could have played these parts more poorly.

1/10

Overall

Overall I think this film is a big joke. Sure, maybe with a bigger budget this could have been better but I just don't like the style of Romero's film and the poor soundtrack worsens the feel of the film (comedy music at moments of horror). I know that Romero was trying to portray Marxist ideals with this film but I as a film critic think they were wasted in this hunk of junk movie.

3.7/10

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