Dawn Of The Dead 1978 Movie Poster
Gene Honnette
Romero waited to make another zombie film after Night of the Living Dead for several years to avoid being stereotyped as a horror director. Upon visiting Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania with a friend whose company managed the complex, he decided to use the location as the basis for the film's story. The project came to the attention of Italian filmmaker Dario Argento who, along with his brother Claudio and producer Alfredo Cuomo, agreed to co-finance the film in exchange for its international distribution rights. Argento also consulted with Romero during the scriptwriting phase. Principal photography on Dawn of the Dead took place between November 1977 and February 1978 on location in Monroeville and Pittsburgh.[11] The special make-up effects were created by Tom Savini, whose work on the film led to an extensive career creating similar effects for other horror films. In post-production, Romero and Argento edited separate versions of the film for their respective markets. Argento's version features a progressive rock score composed and performed by his frequent collaborators Goblin, while Romero's cut primarily favors stock cues from the De Wolfe Music Library.
The United States is devastated by a mysterious plague that reanimates recently-dead human beings as flesh-eating zombies. At the dawn of the crisis, it has been reported that millions of people have died and reanimated. Despite the government's best efforts, social order is collapsing. While rural communities have natural barriers, such as Johnstown, and the National Guard have been effective in fighting the zombie hordes in open country, urban centers have descended into chaos.
At WGON-TV, a television studio in Philadelphia, traffic reporter Stephen Andrews and his pregnant girlfriend, producer Fran Parker, are planning to steal the station's helicopter to escape the city. Across town, Philadelphia Police Department SWAT officer Roger DeMarco and his team raid a low-income housing project, whose mostly black and Latino tenants are defying the martial law of delivering their dead to the National Guard. The tenants and the officers exchange gunfire as the officers try to gain entry, and indiscriminate attacks by racist officers and the reanimated dead exacerbate the resulting chaos. Roger encounters an officer from another unit, Peter Washington. As the SWAT team successfully dispatch the zombies, a disillusioned Roger suggests that he and Peter desert and join up with Stephen (who is Roger's friend) in escaping the city.
Roger and Peter join Fran and Stephen at a police dock and then leave Philadelphia in a stolen WGON-TV news helicopter. Following some close calls while stopping for fuel, the group comes across a shopping mall, and decide to remain there since there is plenty of food, medicine, and all kinds of consumables. Roger, Peter and Stephen camouflage the entrance to the stairwell leading to their safe room and block the mall entrances with trucks to keep the undead from penetrating. This involves driving through crowds of zombies, who attack the trucks. Roger becomes reckless and is soon bitten by the zombies.
After clearing the mall's interior of zombies, the four enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle with all the goods available to them. Roger eventually succumbs to his wounds and dies; when he reanimates, Peter shoots him in the head and buries his body in the mall. Sometime later, all emergency broadcast transmissions cease, suggesting that the government has collapsed. Now isolated, the three load some supplies into the helicopter, in case they might need to leave suddenly. Fran gets Stephen to teach her how to fly in case he is killed or incapacitated.
A nomadic biker gang sees the helicopter in flight and breaks into the mall, destroying the barriers and allowing hundreds of zombies back inside. Despite having a fallback plan should the mall be attacked, Stephen, consumed by territorial rage, takes matters into his own hands by firing on the looters, beginning a protracted battle. On their way out, straggling bikers are overwhelmed and eaten by the zombies. Stephen tries to hide in the elevator shaft, but gets shot and subsequently mauled by roaming zombies. When Stephen reanimates, he instinctively returns to the safe room and leads the undead to Fran and Peter. Peter kills the undead Stephen while Fran escapes to the roof. Peter, not wanting to leave, locks himself in a room and contemplates suicide. When the zombies burst in, he has a change of heart and fights his way up to the roof, where he joins Fran. Having escaped and low on fuel, the two then fly away in the helicopter to an uncertain future.
Featured among the motorcycle raiders are Rudy Ricci as their leader, brothers and frequent Romero collaborators Tony and Pasquale Buba, and Taso N. Stavrakis. Tom Savini, the film's make-up artist, also appears as Blades, a machete-wielding raider. Joseph Pilato, who would later be cast in Romero's Day of the Dead, plays the leader of group of police officers evacuating by boat, although most of his performance was cut from the theatrical release. Other police officers in the film include James A. Baffico as Wooley, with his wife Joey Baffico having an uncredited role as a zombie who attacks Roger. Longtime Romero collaborator John Amplas, who also served as the film's casting director, makes an uncredited appearance as one of the apartment tenants who engages in a gunfight with the police.
Romero and his producer, Richard P. Rubinstein, were unable to procure any domestic investors for the new project. By chance, word of the sequel reached Italian horror director Dario Argento. A fan of Night of the Living Dead and an early critical proponent of the film, Argento was eager to help the horror classic receive a sequel. He met Romero and Rubinstein, helping to secure financing in exchange for international distribution rights. Argento invited Romero to Rome so he would have a change of scenery while writing the screenplay. The two could also discuss plot developments.[15] Romero was able to secure the availability of the Monroeville Mall as well as additional financing through his connections with the mall's owners at Oxford Development.[14] Once the casting was completed, principal shooting was scheduled to begin in Pennsylvania on November 13, 1977.
According to the original screenplay, Peter and Francine were to kill themselves, Peter by shooting himself and Fran by sticking her head into the path of the rotating main helicopter blades. The ending credits would run over a shot of the helicopter blades turning until the engine winds down, implying that the two would not have gotten far if they had chosen to escape.[20] During production, it was decided to change the ending of the film.
Much of the lead-in to the two suicides remains in the film as Francine leans out of the helicopter upon seeing the zombies approach, and Peter puts a gun to his head, ready to shoot himself. An additional scene, showing a zombie having the top of its head cut off by the helicopter blades (thus foreshadowing Francine's suicide) was included early in the film. Romero has stated that the original ending was scrapped before being shot, although behind-the-scenes photos show the original version was at least tested. The head appliance made for Francine's suicide was instead used in the opening SWAT raid, made-up to resemble an African American male and blown apart by a shotgun blast.[21]
Tom Savini, who had been offered the chance to provide special effects and make-up for Romero's first zombie film, Night of the Living Dead, before being drafted into the Vietnam War, made his debut as an effects artist on Dawn of the Dead.[22] Savini had been known for his make-up in horror for some time, prior to Dawn of the Dead, and in his book explaining special effects techniques, Bizarro, explains how his time in Vietnam influenced his craft.[23] He had a crew of eight to assist in applying gray makeup to two to three hundred extras each weekend during the shoot. One of his assistants during production was Joseph Pilato, who played a police captain in the film and would go on to play the lead villain in the film's sequel, Day of the Dead, Captain Henry Rhodes.[24]
A cast of Ross' head that was to be used in the original ending of the film (involving a suicide rather than the escape scene finally used) ended up as an exploding head during the tenement building scene. The head, filled with food scraps, was shot with an actual shotgun to get the head to explode.[22] One of the unintentional standout effects was the bright, fluorescent color of the fake blood that was used in the film. Savini was an early opponent of the blood, produced by 3M, but Romero thought it added to the film, claiming it emphasised the comic book feel of the movie.[27]
For Argento's international cut, the Italian director used the band Goblin (incorrectly credited as "The Goblins") extensively. Goblin is a four-piece Italian progressive rock band that mostly provides contract work for film soundtracks. Argento, who received a credit for original music alongside Goblin, collaborated with the group to get music for his cut of the film. Romero used three of their pieces in his theatrical release version. The Goblin score would later find its way onto a Dawn of the Dead-inspired film, Hell of the Living Dead. Many tracks would also appear in the Tsui Hark film Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind. The version of Dawn released on video in the mid-nineties under the label "Director's Cut" does not use most of the Goblin tracks, as they had not been completed at the time of that edit.
Dawn of the Dead has received a number of re-cuts and re-edits, due mostly to Argento's rights to edit the film for international foreign language release. Romero controlled the final cut of the film for English-language territories. In addition, the film was edited further by censors or distributors in certain countries. Romero, acting as the editor for his film, completed a hasty 139-minute version of the film (now known as the Extended, or previously erroneously as Director's Cut) for premiere at the 1978 Cannes Film Market. This was later pared down to 126 minutes for the US theatrical release. The US theatrical cut of the film earned the taboo rating of X because of its graphic violence. Rejecting this rating, Romero and the producers chose to release the film unrated to help the film's commercial success.[30] United Film Distribution Company eventually agreed to release it domestically in the United States. The film was refused classification in Australia twice: in its theatrical release in 1978 and once again in 1979. The cuts presented to the Australian Classification Board were Argento's cut and Romero's cut, respectively. Dawn of the Dead was finally released there by United Artists, with an R18+ rating following six minutes worth of cuts compared to Romero's US version, in February 1980.[8]
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