Dawn of the Dead (1978)

1979
Film Bulletin vol.48 no.3/4 (May / June 1979)
Cartoon-simple story relies on fast-paced action, violence and black humor. Gory, but bizarre humour makes it play much lighter than it sounds, almost a parody of the horror genre. Writer-director-editor Romero's production is abetted by good cinematography and effective (and grisly) make-up and special effects. - Bartholomew

Films in Review vol.30 no.5 (May 1979) pp.309-310
It is quite possible that Dawn is the bloodiest and goriest motion picture in history and there is no doubt that it excels in violence. However it happens to be marvelously directed, very well photographed, and competently acted. There are occasional difficulties with editing, music and continuity, but overall it should do well at the box office (...) Dawn of the Dead is a top-notch horror film that happens to terribly bloody and violent. The occurances (sic), although exaggerated, are semi-plausible, and the players react to them in a fairly believable manner. The greatest deterrent to viewer enjoyment is the length of the story - largely so that they could shock us with a plethora of blood-red special effects. The entry is an open-ended one, and a sequel looks evident. For horror lovers, this one should not be missed. However, easily excitable folk should certainly avoid it. - Tom Rogers

Hollywood Reporter vol.255 no.25 (21 February 1979) p.15
Vaguely derived from the earlier, taut low-budgeter, Night of the Living Dead, this glossier version comes up short on any kind of tension of (sic) suspense. The script is puerile, direction flaccid, and the cast flounders in a morass from which their fledgeling skills cannot rescue either them or us... The director's repertoire of chills consists of nothing more than showing us, over and over again, the explosive energy of high powered bullets on decaying flesh. Of the zombies, one of the cast remarks 'Why do they keep coming back?' Filmgoers may find themselves asking the same question. - David Wisely

Movietone News no.62-63 (29 December 1979)
The power of Dawn of the Dead lies in its surrounding its audience utterly with orgiastic violence, so that the viewer, too, is tainted, drawn into the madness that comes inevitably with so complete a change in the moral and physical order of things... Dawn of the Dead has been accused of being nothing more than an irreverent, sensationalistic gorefest; it is certainly that, but itis also a worthy successor to Night of the Living Dead - Robert C. Cunbow

Take One vol.7 no.6 (May 1979) pp.17-18
Dawn of the Dead goes well beyond the psychological implications of its predecessor to explore the metaphoric reverberations of full-blown cultural satire. It is no less frightening as a result... Dawn of the Dead looks like the kind of film that could do for our time what Psycho and The Wild Bunch did for theirs; to make moviegoers squirm by confronting, attacking and challenging our basic assumptions until our perceptions of the movies have been altered forever. - Ed Lowry and Louis Black

Variety 18 April 1979 p.22
George Romero, the Russ Meyer of the horror-gore genre, has come up with a continuation of his 1968 Night of the Living Dead click that, while lacking in redeeming esthetic value, leaps for the viscera at every turn (...) While it lacks the genuinely scarifying wallop of Night, Dawn pummels the viewer with a series of ever-more-grisly events (...) that make Romero's special effects man, Tom Savini, the real 'star' of the film. That's fortunate since the actors are as woodenly uninteresting as the characters they play. Romero's strong suit is pacing and technical fluidity. His film has a keen visual sense that tersely extracts the maximum from all the blood-letting. Romero's script, however, is banal when not incoherent - those who haven't seen Night may have some difficulty deciphering exactly what's going on at the outset of Dawn. There's virtually no plot or character development. But the audience for which Dawn is best designed is not likely to dwell on such niceties. To his credit, Romero professes no pretention to "art" on his film's behalf. He declares he set out to make a "straight ahead" horror outing. On that less lofty scale, Dawn of the Dead is for the most part successful. Romero introduces the mayhem at key points when the story line and dialog threaten tedium. His sense of visual balance - which directors of more heralded films could well use - salvages the pic… Romero uses the shopping centre confinement to make semi-telling points about materialistic drives amidst life-threatening chaos. Point is made indirectly: mayhem is centre stage throughout. - Sege

1980
Films and Filming vol.26 no.9 (June 1980) pp.26, 27
George Romero has done it again... As Swift was merciless with his pen in exposing in close up all the madness, greed and corruption of the people of his own times, Romero uses his camera to explore what he sees as the fatal flaws in common humanity - only it's not human any more... It's a horrifying picture in every sense, with the power to perpetuate through the eye of the camera far more physically revolting scenes of decay, violence and mayhem than Swift with his written word, and as Romero has elected to tell his story along the lines of the horror comic it has an added dimension of nausea with which to belabour the mind of the beholder... Romero has, indeed, done it again - more than ever, and quite brilliantly, but believing as I do that too much explicit violence in the cinema degrades and carries its own dangers when it goes far beyond the effects that bring catharsis, I can only plead for mercy in the future and hope that the third - The Day - in the zombie trilogy may carry some kind of constructive hope. Nihilism can be an awfully depressing bedfellow - always supposing one can face sleep after this movie. - Eric Braun

The Listener vol.104 no.2668 (3 July 1980) p.30
It is put together (...) with such stunning skill that I began to not care that I at first thought it disgusting, nor that I felt at the start that it was feeding that appetite it pretended to deplore. Whether you think of Romero as pretentious or exploitative, the story of the dead, reanimated but unsentient, walking the earth and feeding off the living has a certain resonance. - Gavin Millar

Monthly Film Bulletin vol.47 no.553 (February 1980) p.33
Romero has described how his involvement with the 'living dead' (inspired by Richard Matheson's I Am Legend) was always conceived in terms of a trilogy, an evolving allegory about revolutionary change overtaking society as we know it. In this schema, Night of the Living Dead shows the authorities shaken but apparently able to contain the threat; Dawn of the Dead depicts a stage of breakdown when the outcome is in doubt… Romero (…) not only (makes) too much of a good thing out of the parallel between consumerism and zombie-ism, but finally to force his characters to fight to the death with a marauding motorcycle gang for this temple of capitalism. Since the narrative reins (and the budget restraints) of Night of the Living Dead were loosened, as it were, Romero's films have increasingly veered between ill-defined ambition and some extraordinary passages of film-making. Dawn of the Dead never convinces for a moment that its socio-political speculations have any teeth, but like The Crazies and Martin, it is filled with individual scenes and details which do. The attack on the Puerto Rican ghetto at the beginning, for example, is staged and cut in exemplary fashion. But even more, the relationships between the four survivors, as they go about setting up house in the mall, retain an edge of the unpredictable , of half-expressed resentments and fears, that is not entirely dependent on the danger from without. Despite Romero's declared sympathy for his zombies - representatives of the underprivileged everywhere, about to get their own back - it is the human characterisations which hold this shambling, over-long film together. In the event, it is hard to imagine what Romero could make of a world in which the zombies completely hold sway - Richard Combs

Starburst no.18 (1980) pp.10-12
The endless scenes of violence and horror have a cumulative effect that can penetrate the sensibilities of the most blasé of viewers and leave them emotionally drained. That the film manages to do this despite the obvious cynicism with which Romero treats both his material and his audience demonstrates his growing skill as a film maker. This cynicism is evident not only in the exaggerated heapings of blood and gore but also in the heavy-handed satire and humour that permeates the film. The walking dead are obviously meant to stand as a metaphor for the mindless American masses (which presumably includes the film's audience) and as the setting for all this mayhem Romero has significantly chosen a huge, ultra-modern shopping mall… But though on one level Zombies works as a black comedy (very black) it also works as a true horror film. Romero judges his shocks and horrific set-pieces with all the skill of a veteran, which he is now, and there a number of sequences that are truly memorable… Looked at on a purely technical level, Zombies, despite a relatively low budget, is quite an achievement. Apart from the added colour it is a much slicker production than Night of the Living Dead which, by comparison, was little more than a feature-length amateur film. Romero's decision to set the film in a giant shopping mall was a stroke of genius - not only does it serve as a disturbingly incongruous setting for a nightmare, which reinforces the nightmare element, but its cavernous halls filled with luxury goods automatically adds to the picture's production values… Romero has made a successful three-pronged attack on three major American obsessions - guns, gore and goodies - while making a classic horror film at the same time. In a sense, he's made the ultimate 'American' movie. - John Brosnan

1981
Film Directions vol.4 no.15 (1981)
Romero has the ability to shun unessential dialogue in favour of action and shock sequences. The resultant flow effectively sustains audience attention and miraculously disguises over two hours of film as a much shorter period of time. This, and editing, prepare us for each shock sequence so effectively that we arrive like the proverbial 'flowers ready for picking...' Romero proves time and time again (that he has) a talent well refined and clinically executed by a master surgeon who likes to quicken your pulse rate. - Leslie Stannage

1999
Empire no.126 (December 1999) p.160 (UK)
Surmounting with consummate ease that "Difficult second walking dead movie" problem, George A. Romero here equals, maybe surpasses, Night of the Living Dead with a bleak, pessimistic allegory of modern consumer society. Oh, and oodles of the red stuff… Grim, gruelling but beautifully shot, this is intelligent, sophisticated horror. - Adam Smith