George A. Romero makes the desire for comfort look dangerous without treating his survivors as fools. His horror is worth the discomfort, though the satire can persist long after the point has become clear.
Fi1m perspective
In Dawn of the Dead (1978), a shopping mall offers shelter and enough goods to make staying seem sensible. George A. Romero lets us understand the attraction before making the survivors’ attachment to the shops look ridiculous. That patience with human weakness is why we recommend the film so warmly. He wants us to worry about these people, even while we recognise how readily their wish to survive becomes a wish to have things.
Night of the Living Dead (1968), his first feature, established the modern flesh-eating zombie. He did not confine himself to that series: Creepshow (1982), written by Stephen King, used comic-book imagery for a horror anthology. Within the series, Day of the Dead (1985) turned to military and scientific conflict in an underground bunker. Land of the Dead (2005) returned after a long gap to examine class division in a post-apocalyptic city. The changing settings let him ask different questions about how people live together.
His editing in Dawn puts comedy and gore close together, denying us much relief from either. We were horrified by the violence because the extravagant bodily damage kept interrupting the pleasure of watching a clever zombie film. The effects are inventive, but that does not make the injuries easier to watch.
The actors keep Dawn from becoming merely a demonstration of bad consumer habits. Ken Foree gives Peter Washington a steadiness the film needs when the gore threatens to take over, while Gaylen Ross makes Fran Parker matter even when the script is busy with what she represents. David Emge and Scott Reiniger help make the quartet worth caring about. The script does not always give them enough room.
The weakness is repetition: the mall makes the point about buying things, and Romero keeps making it. His confidence in the joke can leave the people competing with it for our attention. Start with Dawn of the Dead, but choose a companion with a strong stomach.
Biography
George A. Romero was an American-Canadian film director, screenwriter and editor. He was born on 4 February 1940 in New York City and died on 16 July 2017 in Toronto. After graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh in 1960, he began making short films and commercials before directing his first feature, Night of the Living Dead (1968).
Romero is known for his series of zombie films, including Dawn of the Dead (1978), which he directed, wrote and edited, Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005) and Diary of the Dead (2007). He also directed Creepshow (1982) and Martin (1977). Many of his films were shot in and around Pittsburgh.
