Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)
I'd been looking forward to watching this movie for so long that I still haven't quite wrapped my mind around my disappointment in it.
The zombie apocalypse gets infected by Jean-Luc Godard film, and, for a while, greatness abounds. There's plenty to admire and appreciate, ranging from from big set-piece moments to small, lovely touches, like every shot of a mannequin. And yet halfway through, I was ready for it to be over.
I haven't quite figure out why that is. It's possible, I think, that the chaos of the first two scenes is so exciting that the mall becomes boring by comparison; it's a bit of a bait-and-switch. Seeing humans fall apart is more interesting than seeing zombies get blown up, and the middle part of the film is perhaps too much of the latter (or just neither). That being said, perhaps the most visceral scene in the whole movie is the scene with the hunters and the National Guard. I loved the more documentary style there and the way the scene made the zombie outbreak feel like a necessary extension of the Vietnam War, or, rather, a necessary cleansing thereafter.
I also had trouble, as I often do, with the rules of the world. It bothered me that the zombies seemed super strong one moment but then could be knocked over with a feather the next moment, depending on what the particular scene required. That seeming inconsistency probably detracted from my enjoyment of the film more than anything else — at least in the dramatic moments. When a human character releases a zombie nun's robe from a gate, the rules don't matter.
There's always that one character in these sorts of films that's a drain on things, and that's definitely Flyboy here. And yet, near the end, he gives maybe the best performance, just in the way he walks. Scott Reiniger distracted me with how much he looked like James Van Der Beek's uncle, but Ken Foree and Gaylen Ross were good, solid horror movie protagonists.
Perfection: "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."
Grade: B-
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