मृतकों की सुबह

By turns horrific, hilarious, disgusting and absurd Dawn of the Dead is the work of a director truly on top of his game. Given almost total control (something which was to be denied Romero in later years) George Romero gives us his unique and vivid view of a world in absolute turmoil.

Not just a mockery of the hedonistic and empty America of the late 70's Dawn is also a parable or warning if you like of the brittle structure of society and how easily it can be disintegrated. Many have criticised the film for being too over the top and questioned the quality of the acting. This for me is one of the joys of the film, Romero uses gaudy sets and effects and combines this with comic book hero dialogue to lull us into a false sense of security. Then masterfully Romero pulls the rug out from under us and brings the reality of the situation crashing in on our heads.

Dawn stands alone well but really comes into its own as part of the trilogy to which it belongs. One theory of mine is that the Alien trilogy (forgetting the miserable fourth installment) takes a lot from the dead trilogy namely the pace and claustrophobia of the two which book-end the mass hysteria and over the top horror and violence of the middle film.

Undoubtedly one of the great Horror films of modern time. Or perhaps there is something about being the only people left alive and living in a shopping mall that appeals to the kid in all of us. 10/10

This movie has always been a big favorite of mine. I went through a zombie phase in high school and this is, hands down, the best zombie film ever made. With all the crap coming out today, it still stands out.

Dawn is a great satire of materialistic modern society. All of the performances are spot on, George Romero's writing and direction is flawless as usual, and the gore is brilliant. What could be better than a bunch of zombies taking over a shopping mall? That's right, nothing.

If you call yourself a horror fan and you haven't seen the original Dawn of the Dead, you need to get with the program immediately! No one messes with Romero, no one!

Sequel to "Night of the Living Dead". In this one it seems the dead are taking over the country. Four people (three men, one woman) escape to a shopping mall and try to fight off the living dead and figure out what to do.

It starts off great with a confusing and VERY gory sequence and then sort of slows down when they get to the mall. There are still the occasional bouts of gore but it quickly turns into a satire on consumerism! There's nothing wrong with that but it makes that point...and keeps rubbing it in the audiences face. It slowly starts to get dull...until a gory rampage kicks in to end the movie.

In 1978 this was considered a strong movie in terms of gore and satire. The gore still works (there's a lot and it's graphic) but the satire seems very dated now. Still this is a classic--in its way. It was released unrated but no one under 17 was allowed in the theatre. Despite that it was a big hit and a rare horror film that critics actually liked. I remember finding this great back in 1979--but it seems kind of weak and dated over 20 years later. However the gore still holds up and it does have a few moments guaranteed to make you jump. Great music score too. I do agree it's a classic but I can truthfully only give the movie a 7. The satire really weighs this down.

Dawn of the Dead is a brilliant film. You gotta love those zombies. I loved the bit where one of the bikers arm got stuck in the blood pressure machine and the zombies ate him alive. If you're going to see it, make sure it is the Director's Cut.

Thoughtful if unsubtle epic follow-up to Night of the Living Dead was one of THE influential movies of the late 70's; pity, then, that the people it influenced paid more attention to the amped-up gore than to the sense of contained hysteria that makes what should be tough going (there are basically three scenes in this movie: zombies attack people, people attack zombies, people stand around talking) a uniquely involving and provocative self-analysis of the zombie film.

The symbolism is, well, not delicate. Just in case we missed it the first time, the trope that the mall attracts the zombies "because it was an important place to them" is repeated for our rumination. But the overall sustained atmosphere, inside and outside of the banal environment of the shopping mall, is by far the film's salient contribution; even when there is no obvious action onscreen, there is the threat of an attack to come, and the clock is clearly ticking on the four protagonists during their idyll. Moreover, it takes the conspicuously familiar and catapults it into an apocalyptic situation, creating a powerful sense of displacement.

The violence, which is primarily what draws people to or repels them from this movie, comes on strong, but quickly becomes monotonous (as it is, the vast majority of the violence in the movie is inflicted against the zombies rather than by them, though is none the less repulsive for that); the scariest part of the movie is how plausible it makes the concept of total disintegration of what we perceive as civilization. The soundtrack, highlighting pulsing, insistent synthesizer chords, contributes much to the onscreen tension, which the action choreography is exemplary. An unlikely masterpiece.