Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead is one of the best horror films ever made -- and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling. It is also (excuse me for a second while I find my other list) brilliantly crafted, funny, droll, and savagely merciless in its satiric view of the American consumer society. Nobody ever said art had to be in good taste. Read full review

I was able to sit through only the first fifteen minutes of Dawn of the Dead. Read full review

Dawn pummels the viewer with a series of ever-more-grisly events - decapitations, shootings, knifings, flesh tearings - that make Romero's special effects man, Tom Savini, the real 'star' of the film - the actors are as woodenly uninteresting as the characters they play. Romero's script is banal when not incoherent - those who haven't seen Night of the Living Dead may have some difficulty deciphering exactly what's going on at the outset of Dawn. Read full review

Where Night of the Living Dead was a straight up horror film (with some minor social commentary buried beneath the ever-present threat of the shambling undead), Dawn is something a bit more intriguing. Sure, much of Dawn's first thirty minutes or so has the same unrelenting feel of the earlier film, but once our heroes arrive at their final destination, the tone changes. Read full review

Witty as they sometimes are, Romero's ironies aren't subtle or devastating enough to justify lengthy comtemplation. "Dawn" seems like a good 80-minute horror premise stretched out at least half an hour too long. Moreover, the excess running time appears to be filled by repeated shootings, clubbings, stabbings and munchings, always vividly depicted, rather than further character exploration or mordant strokes of humor. Read full review

Celebrated Italian horror maestro Dario Argento (SUSPIRIA, DEEP RED) co-produced and provided the lively rock score with his band, Goblin. Though all of the performances are at least adequate, this is not an actor's movie. Believe it or not, this is a film about ideas as well as gore. Nonetheless, this is strong medicine and not for all tastes. Read full review

A grisly extravaganza with an acute moral intelligence. The graphic special effects (which sometimes suggest a shotgun Jackson Pollock) are less upsetting than Romero's way of drawing the audience into the violence. Read full review

Undoubtedly the zombie movie to end 'em all... The horror/suspense content is brilliant enough to satisfy the most demanding fan, and the film uses superb locations like a huge shopping mall to further its Bosch-like vision of a society consumed by its own appetites. But take no munchies. Read full review

Grim, gruelling but beautifully shot, this is intelligent, sophisticated horror. Read full review

Romero’s distinctly Pittsburghian sensibilities can’t be underestimated when explaining Dawn’s appeal; the Monroeville Mall perfectly evokes the feel of a hollow monument standing at the center of a community that couldn’t be bothered to define itself any more distinctively than could be represented by their choice between Florsheim or Kinney’s shoes. The mall, in essence, shoulders the burden of their identity. Read full review

As tempting as it may be to herald Romero as the Swift of schlock, his shopping-mall metaphor is really little more than a clever gag. The director's technique has been refined since his "Living Dead" days, but his grasp of characters is still pretty crude, and he reveals himself to be an all-too-predictable liberal moralists when he singles out the woman and the black as the true heroes. These objections should not-and won't-keep Romero loyalists away. For blood, guts and chuckles, most horror fans will undoubtedly find Dawn of the Dead finger-lickin' good. [7 May 1979, p.90]

Any culture that can create the kind of self-criticism exemplified in work of the Pittsburgh horror master is far from a lost cause. [29 June 1979]

You're supposed to need a strong stomach to sit through this one, but it's so stupefyingly obvious and repetitive that you begin to laugh with relief that you're not being emotionally affected; it's just a gross-out.

Usually I am so turned off by mayhem that I turn away from the screen during knife attacks and the like. But for some strange reason I wasn't sickened by the violence in Dawn of the Dead. Even when one zombie gets his head lopped off by a helicopter blade...Dawn of the Dead has some staying power. [4 May 1979, p.3-3]