Dawn of the Dead, 1978

After seeing the recent Dawn of the Dead remake and Romero's original Night of the Living Dead, I figured it was time to see what many consider the best zombie movie ever made. I'm not so sure if I agree with that, but I can certainly understand why some people might have that opinion. Don't get me wrong, overall I enjoyed Dawn of the Dead a great deal. There were just a lot of things that I would have done differently, and a few other things that made the movie less effective than Night of the Living Dead. Basically, Dawn of the Dead was just a little too long for its own good. Zombie movies shouldn't clock in at over two hours long, they should be lean and taut at about an hour and 40 minutes. The zombies weren't as creepy in color. One of the best aspects of Night of the Living Dead was its lack of color. While the bright red blood was fake but effective, the grey face paint was a joke. It didn't look like dead or decaying skin, it looked like paint. The result was zombies that looked fake. The original's black and white added to the realism. There were scenes I really liked though. Seeing the group make a home for themselves in the mall really made me think. What would I do if confronted with the same situation? How would I react. George A. Romero did a wonderful job taking a great first effort and crafting a new movie. While it shared some similarities, Dawn of the Dead felt like its own movie, not just a "let's make some more money" clone. Ultimately, Dawn of the Dead was too inconsistent for my tastes. There were great and original scenes, then there were silly scenes. For every moment that could be labeled "classic" and might make this the best zombie movie ever made, there was a stupid moment that ruined the pace and mood of the film. Like a pie fight in the middle of a mall with zombies.

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