Dawn of the Dead (1978)

After I saw Dawn of the Dead for the first time I was quite surprised that this film has such a huge status. But after watching it for the second time now I must say that I liked Dawn of the Dead a lot better. I can even say that I thought is was very good.

In this first sequel of "Night of the Living Dead," four people take up residence in a deserted mall while trying to stay alive amid the armies of the dead and a vicious gang of militant bikers.

The setting in the shopping mall is one of the great things about this movie. Which of you hasn't ever dreamed of wandering alone in a huge shopping mall and take al the expensive stuff for free...? It also provides some other good scene's. For example the scene where the zombies walk on the icehockey field or the scene where the troopers race through the mall in a car supported by the music of Goblin.

Unfortunately the zombies aren't very impressing. The green/grey make-up doesn't look good at all and the fact that they are slower than a god damn snale doesn't help neither. (Normally i'm not against slow zombies but this was insane.)

The whole idea of starting a new life in the shopping mall is well conceived and executed but after about an hour and a half it starts to get a bit borring. Luckily the bikers show up who provide more threath, action and humor. It also features a nice part of Tom Savini who does a pretty good job as one of the crazy bikers.

Appart from Savini and Peter, great part from cult-actor Ken Foree, the characters are all pretty annoying. Especially Roger with his continually heeehaahhhh yell. 
As for the gore, Dawn of the Dead has some nice scene's. The blood is a bit to red, hey it's the 70's, but there are enough good parts where the walking dead put their teeth into some flesh and tear a nice chunk out of it. But the gore starts to get really good in especially the last 20 minutes. I guess Tom Savini, who appart from actor also did the make-up effects, found out that there was some budget left as some nice gory scene's pass by. The coolest being probably the scene's where the zombies tear the intestines (which were real cow intestines btw) out of the bodies. 

Dawn of the Dead is a great film with a good atmosphere, cool setting, enough blood and nice music from Goblin. To bad that the zombies weren't very convincing.