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Forums - General Discussion - Dawn of the Dead, 1978 version = bad.

It's funny you feel that way, because it's the best zombie film ever made. Fast zombies are an abomination created by a post-MTV editing style where everything has to be super fast to keep the viewers (now zombies themselves) interested.

Zombie films before the 60's all sucked, and Night of the Living Dead re-defined the entire genre for the 60's and every zombie film after that was ripping it off. Dawn of the Dead re-defined the entire genre yet again for the 70's, modernizing the genre with malls and biker gangs and everything else. The whole point was that there's really no difference between humans and zombies if all we do is walk around a mall shopping like slaves. Every zombie film since then has been biting Dawn. Romero even rewrote it himself for the remake. They just got some hip new director to make it faster and scarier for the kids.

And I agree with HappySqurriel. Zombies aren't scary because they're really fast or strong or deadly on their own; they're scary because there are always more zombies than bullets.



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^^^^^^^^^^^^^That's wat i'm talking about



                                                             

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I'm with Rubang. As a kid, Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead were amazing. I watched both a few years back, and they were still pretty good to me. You kids are spoiled with your CGI and your Jar Jar Binks, and stuff.



The Ghost of RubangB said:
It's funny you feel that way, because it's the best zombie film ever made. Fast zombies are an abomination created by a post-MTV editing style where everything has to be super fast to keep the viewers (now zombies themselves) interested.

Zombie films before the 60's all sucked, and Night of the Living Dead re-defined the entire genre for the 60's and every zombie film after that was ripping it off. Dawn of the Dead re-defined the entire genre yet again for the 70's, modernizing the genre with malls and biker gangs and everything else. The whole point was that there's really no difference between humans and zombies if all we do is walk around a mall shopping like slaves. Every zombie film since then has been biting Dawn. Romero even rewrote it himself for the remake. They just got some hip new director to make it faster and scarier for the kids.

And I agree with HappySqurriel. Zombies aren't scary because they're really fast or strong or deadly on their own; they're scary because there are always more zombies than bullets.

 

I don't necessarily have a problem with slow zombies (though I still think faster ones are scarier), in fact, I love Night of the Living Dead (though I haven't watched in 10-15 years).

And I'm sorry, even a horde of 1000 zombies from Dawn of the Dead wouldn't be scary.  The only way to make them less threatening would be to tie teddy bears around their necks.

 



Blasphemy. The original Dawn of the Dead is the quintessential zombie movie. Its smart, beautifully shot, incredibly well-paced, and has a great cast of characters.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

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marciosmg said:
I felt the same way the first time I watched The French Connection. I heard aobut the car chase scene and how it was awesome. Turns out is ridiculous (compared to today's action movies). The actual plot is good.

Could it be a case of a movie that marked a generation but it is outdated?

The French Connection, on the other hand, is definitely overrated.  About all the movie has going for it is the car chase scene and a few other scenes where Gene Hackman is chasing after the bad guy on foot (the train scene for instance, which is actually quite good).

But the rest of the movie is pretty dull.  Gene Hackman definitely DID NOT deserve an Oscar for his performance, which was good at best.  Nowhere near great.

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

marciosmg said:
twesterm said:
marciosmg said:
I felt the same way the first time I watched The French Connection. I heard aobut the car chase scene and how it was awesome. Turns out is ridiculous (compared to today's action movies). The actual plot is good.

Could it be a case of a movie that marked a generation but it is outdated?

I wanted to think that too but even in the 70's they could have made the zombies a little more threatening.  I can handle the bad makeup, but they seriously just had people walk up and push and that would take out a zombie.

 

 

A lot of people say that his movie had political tones, so maybe he was going for something else other than scaring the audience.

Good zombie movie by the way: 28 days Later...

You wanna talk about overrated, this movie is it.  The first half of the movie is great, but the second half is just plain awful.  Ruined the movie for me.

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

I strongly disagree. Dawn Of the Dead ( the original) is a brilliant social satire and wasn't meant to be scary. It about the people more than the zombies. The human interaction is what the movie is all about.

Night Of The Living Dead is even better.

There was a movie before the 60's that was good. It's called White Zombie.



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It's not bad, it's just not aged well. I agree, it is a bit meh though



I love it. brilliant movie. Shame they wussied out on the ending though. And if your complaint is that fast zombie movies are superior to slow zombie movies... That's kind of saying you don't like Zombie movies. What about Day of the dead? the 90's remake of night?, Return of the Living dead?

I have a feeling that if you rewatched the original Night, you'd feel the same way as you did about Dawn.



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