[9]

Ten years after Night of the Living Dead, which pretty much invented zombies as we now know them, George Romero went back to the well and made a sequel that I like even better. Never content to make a zombie movie that is just a zombie movie, Romero infuses Dawn with a statement on the soul-numbing effects of crash commercialism. It's excellent fodder for college essays, but the message isn't too overbearing. Dawn functions first and foremost as escapist fare, a kind I particularly enjoy. I mean, how cool would it be to live in a giant mall, even if (especially if?) it was under siege by the living dead? Dawn also benefits from the same claustrophobia and documentary-style film making Romero employed in the first film.

On the downside, the makeup effects by Tom Savini are surprisingly mediocre. The zombies have blue skin, and the blood is a bright, unbelievable shade of magenta. You’d think sub-par makeup would sink a zombie flick, but the movie is so compelling otherwise that fans and critics simply overlook it. I don’t mind the makeup, but I do have issues with the music. I like the original music composed by Goblin (of Dario Argento fame). But for the domestic release of the film, Romero replaced a lot of their work with generic stock music that doesn’t match in tone or style.

Still, Dawn of the Dead succeeds in transporting me to a state of fear and isolation in a materialistic fantasy world, and I’ve never seen anything else quite like it.