George Romero's Dawn of the Dead

* * * * (out of 4)

I've always had the fantasy of living in a shopping mall, having all of life's precious commodities at my very fingertips. If I wanted caviar and wine, all I would have to do is saunter on down to the food market and pick it up. Whenever I felt like new clothes, there they'd be on the racks, waiting for me. I could take my morning stroll up and down the fluorescent aisles, play a game of tennis up on the roof, then play a few video games at the arcade with recycled quarters which I could use over and over again.

Life would be simply grand, especially if I had my three best friends with me. We'd be like kings, living off of the fat of the capitalist dream.

Of course, an unsettling boredom would undoubtedly creep up on me, since there can be too much of a good thing, and we're always left wanting something more.

George A. Romero makes this the point of his cult classic, Dawn of the Dead.

" When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."

As a no holds barred action/adventure story, it simply cannot be beat. The tense opening scenes move at a furious pace, opening with the frantic newsroom sequence where a talk show degenerates into a shouting match between the host, his guest and the entire news crew, many of whom are throwing their hands in the air and walking out in frustration.

Not wasting any time, Romero provides all the exposition we need during the broadcast. The dead have been rising from the grave. The people they kill will mindlessly get up and kill. These creatures feed on the flesh of the living, who turn into creatures themselves. A ghoul can be killed by a shot in the head. There is a state of martial law in effect in Philadelphia as in all other major cities.

Welcome to the bleak, "things fall apart" terrain familiar from Romero's previous film, Night of the Living Dead. The government doesn't seem to have a handle on the situation, the scientists can't figure out a vaccine, the rescue stations are being knocked out one by one and the legions of the undead grow slowly but surely.

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4 5