I have written of the mall as an experience as I have explained in my previous writing on the subject, Mallology but one capable only of acting as a backdrop not as a story in itself. See , Fast Times at Richmont High Yet if the mall is an experience which eludes epic-makers as say Hotel. did for the hotel industry, Dawn of The Dead in its allegorical form approximates the mall movie I have sought.
On a superficial level Dawn of the Dead may be the goriest horror film ever made. It is chock full of splattered blood and brains--- all in living color.
The premise of the story is hardly original or brilliant. The dead have come back to life to eat the living. Four people escape from the collapse of civilization into the security of a bank in a shopping mall as armies of the dead batter the sanctuary in search of blood. Can the brave few hold out, against the growing moans of the massed hungry undead pounding at the gates?
The degree of graphic violence, human evisceration, exploding heads, and gruesome flesh eating, as horror for its own sake, would ordinarily leave it beyond consideration of mainstream audiences. However the flight of the few brave survivors, two soldiers, a helicopter pilot, and a reporter into a suburban shopping mall gave the film an unexpected dimension in the closeness of the isolation of four people setting up a quasi home in a shopping mall under zombie siege. Though graphic and gory, perhaps the most blood stained American film of all time, the film rendered a sharp social criticism of consumer culture.
Beyond the blood and feast of Splattering violence, dark humor reigns. Ensconced in the mall the heroic survivors have secured the mall against the zombies, the heroes perambulate about through the stores. Although civilization itself has collapsed, Stephen shows disgust at the expense of a new coat as he examines the price tag of a coat. Yet on the whole the acting is wooden and the lines goofy.
In the midst of poor delivery of a bad script, Dawn of the Dead renders a socially relevant rebuke to the mindless excesses of our Society gone mad in the banality of blatant materialism and acquisitiveness. In the moral vacuum of a culture of consumerism, Zombies drawn to the mall do not knowing why. Yet the PA system makes pointless announcements to the nearly departed shoppers.
The film's satire of consumerism and greed is unparralled.
Outside of the unintended allegory the film is simply awful. Special effects were hardly terrific. Most of the budget must have been spent on renting out the mall, leaving little for makeup. The make-up must have been leftover from a clown's birthday party. The camera focuses on extras fashioned as Blue-faced zombies, with inadequate makeup, claw at the doors of the mall. They don't look nearly as dead as typical shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving.
In spite of the Zombie's orgy of ripping female victim's blouses off, unnecessary to the plot of blood and gore, the film creeps at an excrutiatingly slow pace at times. The scripting could have crafted more sympathetic characters than the annoying Steven or the irritating Roger or the brooding Peter. One might like to feed the entire cast to the zombies if not for the sensitive and sensible Fran, whose her character is inadequately developed throughout most of the film.
Yet it's always the darkest before the Dawn. Will the moral ambiguity of a culture of consumerism survive?.
Dawn of the Dead was filmed on location at Monroeville, Pennsylvania mall.