YMMV / Dawn of the Dead (1978)

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • When Peter and Fran fly the chopper to escape, the zombies still stay on the roof even though they just lost their prey. Were they just shambling about or in a rare case of Romero-Style It Can Think, were they seeing the two off and saying goodbye in their own way?
  • With the sequels confirming that the zombies are sentient, the undead Stephen's actions in the finale can be interpreted in many different ways. Was he engaging in Transhuman Treachery by leading the other zombies to the survivors' hideout? Or was he looking for a Mercy Kill from his friends?
• Awesome Music: The entire soundtrack by Goblin and "The Gonk".
  • Hell, the entire De Wolfe library music selection used in the film. Perfect mix of action, melancholy, and dissonant Muzak.
  • Simon Park's "Slow Repose II", which plays when Peter and Rodger run out to check the mall for the first time, gives the mall a ominous, wonderous, and horrifying feeling all at once. Who knew a hellish landscape could be presented so beautifully through the right music?
  • During filming, the actual Monroeville mall Muzak would start playing about an hour before the mall opened in the morning...however, the production team couldn't find a way to shut it down.^note The machine Roger and Peter use to turn the music on was just scenery. While the music itself is nothing special, they decided to use it on a few scenes to give some Lighter and Softer moments in an otherwise tense and violent movie.
• Broken Base: Which version is the best? The socially conscious but at-times poorly paced extended cut, the more streamlined but imperfect theatrical cut, or Dario Argento's action-packed but less socially relevant Zombi? Zombi in particular has a few scenes that don't make any sense if you haven't seen one of the other versions due to some plot-critical material being removed, which leads to debate as whether or not the tightened pacing was worth making Swiss cheese out of the continuity.
• Designated Hero: Although the quartet is generally presented sympathetically, their actions throughout the film are invariably self-serving, and they carry out some morally questionable actions like stealing the helicopter and abandoning their jobs. This is acknowledged by Peter, who admits that, "[They're] thieves and [they're] bad guys."
• Even Better Sequel: Received glowing reviews from the critics, most notably Roger Ebert who gave it a perfect four out of four stars even calling it art! Viewers also regard it as good, if not better than Night of the Living Dead (1968).
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: The original, hopelessly pitch-black and fairly frightening Downer Ending that ended up never being shot leaves many fans wishing that such an alternate cut actually existed. Especially because the finished film masterfully establishes, but then totally 180s on the planned original ending's obvious buildup, and causes some major Mood Whiplash as a result.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The film first premiered in Italy just three and a half weeks after MOVE, an anarcho-primitivist Black liberation group based out of Philadelphia, got into a violent confrontation with the police that ended with one officer dead and sixteen officers and firefighters wounded, giving a dark subtext to the opening scenes in Philadelphia of racist, trigger-happy cops storming a housing complex whose Black and Puerto Rican residents won't turn over their infected loved ones. Seven years later, that subtext got even darker after the Philadelphia police pulled what can only be described as an urban version of the Waco siege against MOVE's headquarters, killing eleven people and burning down the whole street and part of the next one over.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The burglar alarm seen in the mall has a battery clearly labeled "Big Bruiser."
  • At one point, Peter steals money from the shopping mall's bank on the off-chance that they would be useful later when society returns to normal. A sequel film would prove him to be correct.
  • A man named Peter, faced with his imminent death, says "I don't want to go."
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "The Gonk" has gone into the geek reference pool, even being clucked by chickens as the ending theme to Robot Chicken.
  • Roger's slide down the escalator was replicated so many times by visitors to the mall that eventually posts were added to it.
  • "It gets up and kills! The people it kills GET UP AND KILL!"
  • "We got this man! We got this by the ass!"
  • The Tagline: When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.
• Moral Event Horizon: The racist cop, Wooley, crosses it when, during the raid on a tenement that refuses to give up its dead, he mows down residents indiscriminately because of their skin color. Laser-Guided Karma and Ironic Death ensue when Peter, a black man and fellow cop, fills him with lead.
• Narm: The movie has this is in spades:
  • One zombie approaches Roger while he's fuelling the helicopter, only to be decapitated by the rotor blades. The fact that his head is clearly wearing prosthetics does not help.
  • Any time a human struggles with a zombie. The way they push them off so easily makes it hard to take them as a serious threat.
  • Some zombies have considerably less makeup than Roger or Stephen despite being dead for longer. They look less like zombies and more like they're just half-asleep.
  • For that matter, the way Roger and Steven suddenly have VERY pale skin upon reanimation.
  • The bikers attacking the mall is nothing but this.
• Nausea Fuel: Both versions have this potential.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The one-legged priest in the apartment building.
  • Ignored Expert Dr. Foster and Strawman News Media Sidney Berman, the Mr. Exposition characters who Fran is watching at the beginning of the the movie, with their dialogue revealing all we need to know about both the zombies and the communication and trust breakdowns between the average citizens and the people who are actually in a position to do something about the crisis.
  • The Cosy Catastrophe rednecks, who deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to arriving zombies while treating the whole thing like a turkey shoot.
  • Eyepatch of Power-wearing Large Ham and Well-Intentioned Extremist Dr. Rausch only appears in a couple of emergency broadcasts on TV but is a very captivating presence.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ken Foree (Peter) would later go on to play Kenan Thompson's dad.
  • Those watching the extended "Cannes" cut of the film for the first time may be shocked to see Joe Pilato in a brief role that was cut from the US Theatrical version. He would later go on to play Captain Rhodes, and later still, Metalgreymon.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Tom Savini thought the bluish-grey makeup and orange-ish blood for the zombies made them look too cartoony. That many of them have no makeup around their eyes does nothing to maintain the illusion. However, Romero thought it gave the film more of a comic book-style.
  • For that matter, the organs of the bikers when the zombies eviscerate them look more like rubbery clay. Ironically, they were made with actual pig intestines, but one of the extras (Taso Stavrakis, the mustachioed sledgehammer-wielding biker) had it thoroughly washed so it would be bearable when pressed against his stomach for the effect.
  • The zombie that gets the top of its head chopped off by helicopter blades is a double whammy. Not only are the two inches added to the top of its head real obvious, you can see the blood tubing coming out of his pant leg when he falls off the boxes. (Though in fairness, how would you do the head FX in a pre-CGI era?)
• Spiritual Adaptation: Not Dead Rising, a sticker on the box makes that very clear.
• Too Cool to Live: Roger. He's equal to Peter in shooting skills, serves as a peace keeper between Fran, Stephen, and Peter, and is definitely the most fun character in the film, as well as most other zombie films. His death changes the tone of the film completely.
• Unintentional Period Piece: While the film's overall message of rampant materialism is as relevant as ever, using a shopping mall as the ur-example of everything wrong with consumer culture doesn't really work anymore. After all, the kind of suburban malls featured in the film have been slowly dying out for decades, thanks to the rise of online shopping, the vanishing middle class, and multiple recessions. The "mall drone" culture that the film so heavily criticizes doesn't really exist any more. If the movie took place today, the survivors would have found the mall nearly empty, because it's just not a central part of people's lives.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Good luck finding a mall that has a gun store in it these days. Heck, it wasn't even in the actual mall. They filmed the gun store sequence at a separate store altogether.
  • Also, Francine can be seen drinking and smoking numerous times after the reveal that she’s pregnant, well after the harmful effects of doing so became widely known. but simply weren't taken serious yet. This is further contrasted with how protective she is of her own pregnancy, yet appears so cavalier about it at the same time.
• Values Resonance: The film's messages about valuing materials over human life, using a societal crisis as an excuse to commit anarchy, and engaging in pointless arguing about an issue rather than actually fixing the issue are perhaps even more prevalent today than they were back in the '70s.
• Woolseyism: The European cut by Dario Argento, known as Zombi, which axed most of the humor and social commentary while speeding up the pacing to give it more of an action movie vibe. It's strongly debated whether the American theatrical version, the Director's Cut, or Argento's European cut is the best version of the film.

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