DAWN OF THE DEAD (76)

Directed by: George A. Romero (1978)

Starring: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reininger, Gaylen Ross

The Pitch: In a world overrun by zombies - legions of the living dead, feeding on human flesh - four survivors take refuge in a deserted shopping mall.

Theo Sez: Spent the first half-hour looking out for zombies to appear from behind every closed door and around every corner, before realising it's Not That Kind of Movie (a sad comment on how degraded the horror genre's become in the 25 years since) ; in fact, the zombies end up being quite sympathetic - they're dangerous but without any real malice, running entirely on instinct, primordially intent only on food - whereas our heroes aren't always very likeable, preening and gloating as they fight (unlike the zombies, they delight in their killing) and totally addicted to the joys of consumerism. "Let's go shopping!" is the battle-cry (the film is set in a mall), while the Living Dead stand outside forlornly, gazing at the goodies and pawing at the glass doors : they're the disenfranchised, as made clear by an opening scene where SWAT troopers raid a housing project looking for zombies, making little distinction between them and the block's poor ethnic-minority inhabitants - though they're also, it's made clear, "just like us", haunted by vestigial memories of being human. The film, shot in that creepily unadorned 70s style, isn't actually 'scary' at all, certainly not in the sense of sudden shocks (the two child zombies are probably the only 'boo!' moment) - more a gnawing tension, and increasingly chilling realisation of the kind of world it offers : civilisation broken down, nothing left but useless consumer goods as a last line of defence against the inevitable end (I don't think we're left in much doubt that the zombies, lumbering and easy-to-kill though they are, will eventually take over the planet). Graphic violence has been much overstated ("Romero has a message, but it's drowned in buckets of blood," claims Danny Peary mysteriously in "Guide For The Film Fanatic"; maybe I saw a TV version or something), though the satire quotient is also not as as high as some people say : it's a slow, sober, almost elegiac film - decadent Modern Man face-to-face with his single-minded, half-forgotten animal nature - exciting in parts but also wry, humorous (one zombie even gets a cream pie in the face) and even philosophical, somewhat hampered but also lent a touch of the epic by its excessive length. Not as starkly effective as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, but still : a zombie movie with a desolate air, going to the heart of audience identification, looking on - equally appalled and sympathetic - at denuded humanity at its most unabashedly savage? Definitely a sad comment on how degraded the horror genre's become in the 25 years since...