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DAWN OF THE DEAD (1979)
Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall. Directed by George A. Romero, starring David Emge, Ken Force, Scott H. Reiniger and a bunch of other stiffs.
The sequel to the nightmarish NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is a classic mash-up of 70s horror with over-the-top comedy blended with a bad hair day at the mall.
Join co-hosts Elysabeth Gwendolyn Belle and Robert Meyer Burnett as hack, slash, bite and gnash their way through this wildly entertaining film.
Hello there Duke and Ace,
As well a hearty greetings too the lovely PGS community.
Knowing that you’re going to be doing OG dawn of the dead makes me excited to see you two half cut and talking about zombies. Ive always enjoyed zombies as horror monsters and despite the many manuals on surviving them there’s just something terrifying to me about an unstoppable horde bearing down on you and just one bite is all that they need to make you one of them.
Makes my short hairs tingle if you know what I mean …
As an occasional Devil’s advocate I will add that the trope of zombies getting more and more amped up like we see in resident evil and Z nation makes it hard to enjoy sometimes. However in my humble opinion I think dawn of the dead is a top tier zombie film and only gets pushed from my number one spot due to Shawn of the dead.
Thanks for reading hope I didn’t ramble to much, my letter writing skills aren’t on point but one day they’ll be better.
I hope everyone’s having a grand time. Hang loose and aim for the head!
Greetings Rob and Elysabeth,
I’ve been watching for a while and enjoying the back catalogue of ‘WINEning’ reviews. Now that you’ve reached Dawn of the Dead I thought I leap in with a first letter and a few memories.
Here in the UK in the 1970s Dawn was designated as an ‘X’ rated film and being too young to see it, my initial impressions of the film were the TV spots and trailers. I suppose compared to the rotten zombies that came later via Lucio Fulcio and latterly the Walking Dead, Dawn’s dead look a little plain but at the time those staring blue/grey automatons bumping belly-first into the glass doors of the mall looked pretty damned scary.
Whilst I’d have to wait for the VHS revolution of the early 80s to finally see the film, what I remember of the initial release was the fact that the UK was going through what was called the ‘Winter of Discontent’ at the same time. This was a political issue where unions had brought the country to a standstill with a long strike effecting essential keys workers. It saw the army thing on the role of firefighters and garbage left uncollected to build up into mountains of rot in the street week after week – leading to a plague of rats infesting London. Also mentioned on the news at the time was the fact that the dead were going unburied and being stored until the strike was resolved. This continued for some months during a severe winter.
It seemed to me that the army, the rats and the dead tied in with portentous elements in culture. James Herbert’s horror novel THE RATS appeared prophetic, as did the striking Dawn tagline ‘When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.’ Whilst I couldn’t see the film, it all heightened expectation – and I sort of liked it.
It would be the following year that I finally got into a theatre to see an X film, and that was ALIEN, I have to admit I painted a little fake stubble on my chin to hoodwink the cinema proprietor, but I think he was more interested in my money than my loose morals or my shit teenage ‘beard’, certainly he had no problems taking my cash a few weeks later when I revisited to watch ’The Other Cinderella’ my next and far more appropriate X film.
So there’s a few memories of the era. I’m looking forward to your review and everything that comes along on the WINEning list.
As an illustrator for physical media – for Arrow, Anolis, Shout Factory and other companies, I also love your show with Dieter and the insider knowledge you bring to all discussions. Work has been a little thin this last year so WINEning about movies has not only got me to revisit classic films rather than suffer woke TV, but it’s also inspired me to paint up posters for favourite classic films.
I hope you might consider checking a few of the images out as they were instigated by watching your WINEning reviews.
https://twitter.com/Harnois751
https://www.deviantart.com/harnois75
All the best, and long may you continue.
Daryl Joyce