Dawn of the Dead: Intelligent Social Commentary in a Horror Film

While many may assume that the blood, guts and the horror genre make for mindless entertainment, a viewing of George Romero's film, Dawn of the Dead, may result in a change of opinion. The movie, which takes place at the Monroeville Shopping Mall outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a biting satire of the modern consumerist way of life. It may also be considered a mocking portrayal of mankind's persistent inability to cooperate or make decisions based on logic rather than emotion in the face of danger, a consistent theme throughout the entire Dead series.

This latter theme is the first to be introduced, as elite police forces descend on an apartment house of minorities where apparently dead family members, zombies, are kept in the basement. The American government issues a fictitious mandate requiring that the bodies of all affected persons be turned over to squads of the National Guard to be "taken care of," while the citizens refuse to let go of their much-loved relatives. Eventually, the minority resistance is quelled by a combination of overwhelming police forces and the release of the living dead from their basement quarters.

Shortly thereafter, the action switches to the mall, where the bulk of the film takes place. The four main characters find themselves in a world of material goods without monetary cost, as the world's commerce system has collapsed. Instead they must fight and kill the living dead in order to acquire the goods which they need to survive and to secure the mall, while generating a great deal of waste and acquiring many unnecessary items. Some viewers may remember the best example of this to be the theft of a large amount of cash from an abandoned bank, in a world where money is essentially useless.

However, the troubles of Peter, Roger, Stephen and Frannie are not over. Just as they are settling into their new environment, which they have cleansed of all zombies and secured against, a biker gang intent on overtaking the mall and exploiting the available resources attack, letting in hundreds of zombies which prove to be trouble for both sides as the battle is fought. In the resulting chaos, both sides are affected negatively, whereas sharing the resources of the shopping center may have strengthened the remaining living people.

The notion that the horror genre is a mindless genre without meaning beyond the surface must be dismissed, as it has been inaccurate since at least the release of this film in 1978. For that, fright fans everywhere have George Romero to thank.