The Dead Will Walk

Very enjoyable making-of documentary, and essential viewing for any fans of Dawn of the Dead.

It's completely straightforward when it comes to presentation and style, being not much more than your standard making-of documentary, admittedly. But it excels because of how interesting the behind the scenes story of Dawn of the Dead was, as well as how engaging the various interviewees are, and how enthusiastic everyone seems to be while discussing it.

It also made me miss George A. Romero even more, as the filmmaker behind the film. This was made before his death, so it makes the praise everyone gives him feel even more sincere; they're not just saying it out of respect for someone who's passed away, because that's considered polite. He seemed like a cool guy, and genuinely nice, too.

Having recently seen Romero's new Land of the Dead I decided to go back and check out some of the extra features included on the massive Ultimate DVD collection of Dawn of the Dead, which I didn't like. I remember being amazed at the sickness of Dawn of the Dead, which I consider to be by far the goriest of the trilogy. I remember being hugely unimpressed by the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead (and surprisingly impressed by the 2004 remake), so it was great to see the cast and crew talking about making the movie in this wonderful documentary.

One of my favorite individual moments in this documentary was when Tom Savini talked about how he had planned to put make-up on all of the zombies to make them look gray but that it turned out to be a bad idea because they came out so many different colors –green, blue, etc, and just didn't look right. This was, if I remember correctly, one of the things that most bothered me about the 1978 Dawn because, being the first film in the trilogy to be filmed in color, the ineffective make-up was a big problem for me.

For a movie that was made nearly three decades ago, I was really surprised at how much detail they were able to get into this documentary, as well as how many of the original cast, many of them almost obscure zombies from the film, they were able to get together for interviews to talk about their experiences in making the movie. It was great to see how the town of Pittsburgh really came together to help make the movie, having been so impressed by the original film, and how much of a fun fiasco the making of the movie was for so many of the extras and for the cast.

This entire DVD collection is a wonderful compilation of information about the making of the movie and the movie itself, and even if you didn't love the film itself, as I didn't, this is definitely something to check out. I have often noticed that documentaries and other supplemental materials included with DVDs can vastly improve your opinion of a movie, and this one is no exception. Don't miss this one.

An appropriately thorough documentary for such a scrappy horror film, "The Dead Will Walk" covers plenty of ground, while still maintaining a nice pace. The cast all seem happy to be here (you never know with some actors), and for such a nocturnal shooting schedule, there's plenty of fondness to go around.

If "Dawn of the Dead" had a secret weapon, it was Tom Savini as the makeup effects wild man. And he turns out to be the most enjoyable talking head here. But they're all pretty solid.

7/10

Dead Will Walk, The (2004)

**** (out of 4)

Terrific documentary covering the making of George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD features interviews with the man himself as well as Dario Argento, Tom Savini, Ken Foree, David Emge, Scott Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, Zilla Clinton (unit manager) and Chris Romero. The film starts off with Romero talking about his ideas for a sequel and this leads to him being invited to Rome by Argento where he would write the screenplay. From here we learn about the hiring of the cast, Tom Savini coming on board and what impact the film has had over the years. Fans of DAWN OF THE DEAD are going to love this film since it does contain the majority of the major cast members and of course the director and gore effects master. Just about everything you could possibly want to know is told here and we also get quite a bit of footage from behind-the-scenes of the actual shooting. Even better is that we get Dario and Claudio Argento and Claudio Simonetti of Goblin to discuss the European version of the film. It's interesting to hear Dario talk about why the film was too long and why they needed to edited the picture down. A few years later he would be outraged when American distributors would cut his films down so it's interesting to hear his feelings on cutting whenever he has money at stake in a project. Some of the best moments come from the cast members talking about what the film has done for their careers. Other great stuff comes from Savini talking about the various projects he was doing on the film. THE DEAD WILL WALK runs just 75-minutes but it contains a lot of great stories and of course it's great seeing the cast as they are today. Fans of the film won't want to miss this one.

'The Dead Will Walk (2004)' is a feature-length documentary surrounding the making of Romero's 'Dawn Of The Dead (1978)', principally available on various home-video releases of the zombie classic. It shines a light on just how rag-tag and favour-filled the low-budget production of 'Dawn' really was, using interviews with an impressive number of principal cast and crew, as well as some decent behind-the-scenes footage, to do so. It progresses through the production, including 'pre' and 'post', in a more-or-less chronological way, which makes for an easy-to-watch and intriguing piece that really does fly by. The content is just incredibly interesting. It's sometimes anecdotal, sometimes opinionated and sometimes nostalgic but always relevant. Some of the most intriguing insights come from Tom Savini, who goes into great depth on both his impressive special effects and his impromptu stunt work. It's also nice to hear from some of the zombie extras, who apparently receive much adulation from fans despite having limited screen-time. The doc does a lot to make you appreciate 'Dawn' even more than you already do. It's one heck of a 'special feature'. 7/10