"Dawn of the Dead" (1978)

Title: "Dawn of the Dead"
Released: 1978

"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth." So eloquently stated and so true in the case of this flick. In fact, this is the only plausible hypothesis set forth to explain the re-animation of corpses in this installment of George Romero's "______ of the Dead" zombie series. With the recent resurgence of zombies in popular culture (the publishing of "Breathers", "World War Z", and "Patient Zero" and the release of such films as the forthcoming "Zombieland"), I thought it would be nice to revisit one of the subgenre's classics.

Roger is a hotshot, wannabe zombie-killing bad boy who whoops and hollers like he's being jerked off by a chimpanzee every time he gets excited about his mission of stopping the undead. Peter is a black, badass warrior who luckily avoids all racial stereotypes by being able to dunk a basketball and having a grandfather in Trinidad that was a voodoo priest. Stephen is a pilot and a complete pussy who probably annoyed me less in life than he did as a zombie (sorry for the spoiler, but you just know this guy's not gonna make it). Rounding out the main cast is Francine. Her main function, other than learning to fly the helicopter, seems to be drinking wine and smoking cigarettes while pregnant. In an attempt to evade the zombies that are quickly taking over their local area, our foursome find themselves holed up in the one place that mindless people always seem to flock--a shopping mall. There they, um, kill zombies and try to stay alive. That is the beauty and simplicity of this film--there is no intricate plot, just straight-up, hardcore violence. Eventually a wannabe Hell's Angels motorcycle gang decides that they want to cohabitate with our main characters in the mall with disastrous results.

This film begs a few questions and hammers home a few key points:

-If you're going to hide out from zombies in a shopping mall, try to pick one with an indoor ice rink and a supermarket where you can buy in bulk.

-Speaking of the ice rink, zombies really suck at hockey.

-At what point do you become a liability to your zombie-killing team? I vote for whenever you get bitten and have to be carted around like a fucking baby in a makeshift Radio Flyer.

-1978 had some badass technology including the best video game graphics this side of the Atari 2600 and a pair of walkie-talkies the size of smart cars.

-Zombies seem to like intestines much better than brains.

-Zombies do not discriminate along religious lines--this flick contains a zombie nun and an undead Hare Krishna (who, by the way, resembles Marilyn Manson with no hair, blue skin, and glasses).

-Zombies are so much cooler when they amble about aimlessly. They're scarier when they can run, but cooler when they're slow.

-When motorcycle gangs aren't being generally destructive or killing/damaging others, they like to brush up on their clowning by spraying seltzer water and throwing pies into the faces of zombies.

This film is a true classic, and I'm not going to go into any thesis about the evils of consumerism and the fact that this movie takes place in a mall. After all, who doesn't want to run around an empty shopping mall? Oh, and the creepiest moment of this film has nothing to do with zombies. It occurs when Peter offers to perform an impromptu, illegal abortion on Francine.

Bottom line: One of the best zombie films ever made. Don't miss this one.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Disabled Zombie Brains.