Dawn of the Dead (Ultimate Edition)
George Romero's landmark zombie movie takes up where his 1968 feature Night Of The Living Dead ends, and kicks off with chaos. The story begins in a television newsroom, where the presenters and technical crew are trying to keep the public up-to-date regarding an alarming number of people rising from the dead. But everyone at the studio is finding it hard to stave off sheer pandamonium, as journalistic instinct gives way to survival instinct and people try to find a safe place.
It's a small subset of of people from the studio and a couple of brawny SWAT team members who group together and flee in a helicopter atop the studio building.
Civilisation is disintegrating: before getting in the helicopter, a stranger asks them if any of them has a cigarette. Nope. None to be had.
Except that when they get in the helicopter, there is a series of flickers as they all light up and abandon themselves to comfort of their cancer sticks.
Not one cigarette to spare, eh?
That's just a sign of social decline.
Our cast head skywards and to the relative safety of a large, abandoned shopping mall. On the way, they see masses of the living dead laconically traipsing all over the place, in search of live flesh and brains. Mmmmm ... brains.
Despite the laughs in this film, there is something unsettling and thrilling about the apocalyptic tone, and the sense of intractible doom.
One character's description of the mall is similarly startling: it's hard to recall a time when such shopping centres weren't commonplace. It is described as a large, under-cover mall.
But the zombies are only part of the problem: one of the refugees is pregnant, though if she and her partner decide not to have it, one SWAT team member assures them he knows how to "get rid of" the unwanted pregnancy. They really do teach them an incredible array of survival skills, don't they?
There's also a gang of nasty bikers converging on the mall, and they are hellbent on the destruction of anything and everything in sight.
It was with some ambivalence that this viewer watched Dawn Of The Dead. It had been years since I'd seen it, and I was reluctant to relinquish the romantic memories of having seen it an orientation-week all-night film-fest as an under-graduate. (With high quality DVDs and TVs available, do they even bother with those, nowadays?)
This film has stood the test of time. In fact, Romero's sardonic indictment of consumer-driven society was ahead of its time.
Umbrella's 3-DVD disc compilation includes hours of fun viewing to satisfy the most ravenous of zombie lusts.
The first disc contains the original - uncut - theatrical release, along with a feature-length documentary: The Dead Will Walk.
Also included in this collection, is the extended version, which runs for more than two hours.
There's also a less schlock-oriented, more atmospheric version cut by Dario Argento. It was this version that screened in Europe, and will be of interest to "Dead" fans, of course, but also interesting for anyone curious about America and Europe's differing cinematic sensibilities.
Horror buffs, zombie enthusiasts and film buffs will find this release an invaluable addition to their collection.