Dawn Of The Dead (Director's Cut) [DVD] [1980]

George Romero's 1978 follow-up to his classic Night of the Living Dead is quite terrifying and gory (those zombies do like the taste of living flesh). But in its own way, it is just as comically satiric as the first film in its take on contemporary values. This time, we follow the fortunes of four people who lock themselves inside a shopping mall to get away from the marauding dead and who then immerse themselves in unabashed consumerism, taking what they want from an array of clothing and jewellery shops, making gourmet meals, etc. It is Romero's take on Louis XVI in the modern world: keep the starving masses at bay and crank up the insulated indulgence. Still, this is a horror film when all is said and done and even some of Romero's best visual jokes (a Hare Krishna turned blue-skinned zombie) can make you sweat. --Tom Keogh

The quite terrifying and gory Dawn of the Dead was George Romero's 1978 follow-up to his classic 1968 Night of the Living Dead. But it is also just as comically satiric as the first film in its take on contemporary values. This time, we follow the fortunes of four people who lock themselves inside a shopping centre to get away from the marauding dead and who then immerse themselves in unabashed consumerism, taking what they want from an array of clothing and jewellery shops, making gourmet meals and so on. It is Romero's take on Louis XVI in the modern world: keep the starving masses at bay and crank up the insulated indulgence. Still, this is a horror film after all and even some of Romero's best visual jokes (a Hare Krishna turned blue-skinned zombie) can make you sweat. --Tom Keogh

DVD 5
English
Region 0

The definitive zombie film, Dawn of the Dead - Director's Cut, is acclaimed as one of the best horror films ever made. This cult classic is George A. Romero's nightmare vision of a world populated by flesh-eating zombies and four individuals struggling for survival.

"As the oil runs out, as the Three Mile nuclear plant sprays radiation into the atmosphere like an atomic teakettle that someone forgot to take off the burner and as the dollar gradually becomes more and more transparent, Romero invites us into a crazed bedlam where zombies stagger up and down escalators, stare with dulled fascination at department store dummies wearing fur coats and try to eat perfume bottles. The movie's four protagonists at first segregate themselves, and then, unknowingly, become a part of it. The only difference is that they're not dead. At least not yet." - Stephen King, Rolling Stone Magazine