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Dawn of the Dead -- U.S. Theatrical Cut

Dawn of the Dead -- U.S. Theatrical Cut

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Gross, but entertaining
Review: Everyone loves zombie movies. But this movie was just disgusting. Far from Romero's best. Pales in comparison to Night of the Living Dead. Much more funny than scary. There are many instances when this movie just gets silly. However, he silliness is counter-acted by extreme gore. This movie is disgusting and is NOT for the squeamish. If you get sick easily, avoid this movie. One example: Perfect camera angle of a person's stomach getting torn open and entrails being pulled out. If just reading that makes you sick, DONT watch the movie. I enjoyed it, being a horror fan, but i felt the gore was more than a little overblown. Stick with the original NotLD or the remake for a scary zombie movie. If you're in the mood for siliness and over-the-top gore, then go with this one.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Rare Sequel That Surpasses It's Predecessor.
Review: 11 long years after his highly successful directorial debut "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), cinematic horror maestro George Romero unleashed its first sequel, "Dawn of the Dead", one of those rare continuations that not only equals its predecessor, but even manages to surpass it.

The film basically picks up where "Night" left off. By now the plague of man-eating zombies has all but engulfed the nation and a small band of rebels have managed to fortify themselves inside a Pennsylvanian shopping mall. However, they are not alone in the mall as they only occupy a small upstairs storage room unknown to the multitude of zombies shuffling through the myriad of department stores below them.

That's all I'm going to say about this movie because its such a great film and I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't yet had a chance to view it.

I will say this however, "Dawn of the Dead" is certainly not for the sqeamish and those who do not particularly care for horror films. The amount of gore in the film is often very excessive and the atmosphere maintained in the film is one that is highly unsettling. True fans of the genre who have not seen this film yet, though, should make a point to see it as soon as possible.

If there are any questions or doubts going through your mind as to this film's level of actual "horror", let me just say this. Personally, I do not scare easily and very rarely do I ever see a film that actually frightens me or makes me feel uneasy. However, to date, I have had atleast 2 or 3 nightmares brought about as a result from having viewed Romero's "Dead" trilogy. Both "Night" and "Dawn" are very well made and scary motion pictures, while the third entry, "Day of the Dead", even though not a bad film, lacks the crucial elements that made the first two films the horror classics they have become.

A possible fourth entry in Romero's series of Zombie films has been hinted at for years, but George has stated that it will probably never come to be. His fans can only wait and hope.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A macabre masterpiece
Review: This film works as either a commentary on the society of today or an outright apocalyptic mind-blower. The reality of the situation is heightened by the opening TV station sequence and it works because it literally throws the viewer into the midst of chaos. Good direction and although most of the actors "lay it on a bit thick" it works. You can't help but start thinking about what YOU would do in these unbelievable situations.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: dawn of the dead
Review: The most exiting zombie movie of this millenium past,and present!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Classic, Scary Camp film
Review: One reviewer stated that because this film is a comment on consumerism (especially for the late 70's when this was made) and because this film has alot of gore doesn't make it a good movie. True. These are just a few things in this movie people delight in (really, I don't know why) and these are not the things that make this a good or bad movie.

Overall this movie is meant to do one thing: Scare you and make you have fun while it scares you. And if you let it (like you should let any movie do what it tries to do...suspension of disbelief folks, it's a wonderful thing) you will be scared. And yes, you will have fun with it.

Many shots and scenes here have fear in them. ie: zombies pouring into the elevator with their hands stretched to the camera; Flyboy caught in a zombie game of hide and seek in the boiler room; a harrycaritina(sp?) zombie coming for a lone and unarmed Fran, etc. But there is a deeper sense of fear at work here. One that really makes people remember this movie as a good fright fest. In this (as well as Romero's 2 other zombie flicks) the dead do not crawl from their coffins and up through 6 feet of dirt, there are no skeletons among them, and the only way to kill them is to destroy their re-animated brains. Truely, IF zombies were to rise and take the earth (but of course they won't) I'm positive that it would be just as Romero visioned it. Also, with these movies the theme of surival horror is at it's peak. This isn't the vampire story where you must kill the master to restore everything, this isn't Evil Dead where you must only survive the night. In this world, no matter where you run, no matter how many you kill, and no matter how long you survive, you will NEVER be free from the zombies. One last thing, Romero's three movies give their own reason why it's happening, and NO ONE can shake a stick at these reasons. Radiation from space for example, we don't even know everything about earth let alone from space. Of course I don't believe such a thing will happen, but like I said, No one can say for a FACT that this CAN'T happen...

People say this film is full of bad editing...not true, Romero likes his audience to experience the shot rather than see it. That is why there are alot of quick and odd timed cuts that give this film a strange sense of pace. Movies of today don't do this. Which is why someone may consider the editing of this film bad. But it's not true.

And the campiness of this film is not to be denied! How can we hold camp AGAINST a movie when it sets out to find camp in the first place?!

A very good film!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Zombie Movie Ever!
Review: This is the best zombie movie ever made!It manages to be scary and funny at the same time!The zombies are hilarious in some scenes,but can be very nasty in others-like in one scene a guys intestines are getting eaten out while he is still alive!NASTY!So when you watch it do not eat anything and I hope you have a strong stomach!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Interesting, as his films usually are, but...
Review: ...where did this film take me, as a viewer? Nowhere. When I rented "Dawn of the Dead," I expected a horror masterpiece of epic proportions; one that I would be talking about for years to come, like all of the critics whose reviews I had read, which detailed a film so violent and ahead of its time that it would deeply affect anyone who actually could stomach the film's running time. The film started out interesting enough. There was a roller coaster ride of violence that began with a police raid on a building that was infilterated by zombies. Heads exploded from shotgun shells, necks were bitten, chunks of flesh torn away from limbs... All well and good. The make-up effects looked acceptable, and I was interested in the characters. But then the film lost me. The survivors in this film head for the mall, and they attempt to seek shelter from this supposedly unstoppable force of zombies. Now, I can understand why dozens of these things coming at you would be a threat, but in this movie they look like grey people and nothing more. They plod around aimlessly and rarely seem to have any objective. We see them destroyed wholesale in all sorts of ways, but yet they never seem to illustrate any threat until they have one person cornered. I wasn't scared by them at all, yet I persevered in watching this movie because I was expecting some sort of terrifying pay off that made all of this so-called sophisticated satire and gore worthwhile. I never got it. The pay off didn't come, and I turned off the TV feeling cheated. "Dawn of the Dead" could've been something magnificent if only George Romero had bumped up the pace at which the zombies attack, shortened the movie by about twenty minutes, and didn't so blatantly try and hit us over the head with the satire stick. A little subtlety would've helped too. "Dawn" missed so many opportunities it could've capitalized on that, to me anyway, it's nothing more than a series of misthrown darts that struck so far away from the bull's eye you'd need an RV and a ten day supply of food and water to retrieve them. Now, I know that many people who have seen this movie think of it as a masterpiece of the genre, and how dare I sully the good name of such a good director, but I just didn't see what this movie had to offer in the entertainment category. Sure, there are some laughs and some moments of genuine tension, but they don't make up for an overlong script, stretches of silence that have no point, mediocre acting, and hundreds of grey people that do nothing more than wander up the down escalator, which is why I give the film 2 stars. Seriously, if these zombies can rip open a man's abdomen and rip his intestines out like they were tearing through plastic wrap, why can't a whole group of them break through a window? I found myself asking that question one too many times during this film. It's a true masterpiece of disappointment.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Are you people insane?
Review: My God, this movie was awful. Bad acting, brainless dialogue, innefective makeup, and some of the worst editing I've ever seen. How this movie could have so many fans is mind-boggling. I guess it's good for a couple of laughs, especially when it comes to the head-exploding scene. But otherwise, this is lacking in both wit and actual fear. It's a trashy type of film you see at around 2 in the morning with a pizza in your hand. Just because it claims to be a satire on consumerism doesn't make it a good movie. Just because it had gore doesn't make it a good movie. This film has nothing going for it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: REQUIRED VIEWING FOR ALL HORROR FANS
Review: I have to say that seeing "Dawn of the Dead" after 20 years have passed has taken a bit of the shock appeal away from this film. As a 9-year old kid, I thought it was the epitome of gore & horror. But having grown older and wiser, it's not really an all-out gorefest zombie doomsday film. It's really a dark-humored social slap at a materialistic society. But it's a great film beyond any shock value.

If you're looking for rotting, disgusting, worm-filled zombies, you'll be let down. Other than a handful of particularly gruesome corpses, the majority of zombies look like stagehands who were beaten with effects supervisor Tom Savini's grandmother's powder puff kit. For the most part, they hardly look menacing. The real engine that drives this film is the storyline.

Right at the outset, we are shown a society that is overrun by the living dead. An assault team gets their ranks decimated by zombies in a battle at a housing project, and two of the men end up in a news helicopter with a reporter and her pilot. They travel to an airport to refuel, battle more zombies, and finally make it a suburban shopping mall. This is where all of the plot elements come together and really shine. Our four main characters set up shop inside the mall, clearing it of all the walking dead and making a nice little pad for themselves. They loot, pillage, rob, and live the good life in their new-found haven. But in the end, greed and materialism costs them dearly. It's well-done black humor.

"Dawn" has all the classic elements of the zombie genre: sharpshooters impaling zombies between the eyes; dashing and darting around hordes of the slow-moving monsters; entrails being ripped out and eaten; chunks of flesh being ripped out of arms,legs, and necks; and those unfortunate enough to be bitten by the creeps turning into cannibalistic undead themselves; even an annoying Hare Krishna zombie! Romero takes a broad slap at a greedy society, pompous scientists, grating reporters, trouble-making lowlifes, and a general public who, even in undeath, flock to the shopping mall like so many sheep. Very clever undertones to the storyline.

While I can't agree that "Dawn" is the ultimate horror film(that mantle, IMHO, belongs to John Carpenter's brilliant masterpiece "The Thing"), it is a true classic in it's own right. Do yourself a favor and get the director's cut, and follow it up with "Day of the Dead" & "Return of the Living Dead", the next two outstanding films in the series. From the original "Night of the Living Dead", up through "Return of the Living Dead", the series truly is the strongest in the zombie genre.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Check your blood pressure.
Review: Simply the best horror film of all time.


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