Dawn of the Dead

"When there’s no more room in HELL, the dead will walk the EARTH!"

1978 2h 7m EN

🙌

7.5

BANGER

🔥

92%

CERTIFIED FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.8

IMDB

★7.5TMDB · 2,398🍅92%Rotten Tomatoes●71Metacritic★7.8IMDB · 135,945

HorrorScience Fiction

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

During an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter, and his television-executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

“When there’s no more room in HELL, the dead will walk the EARTH!”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

David Emge
Stephen "Flyboy" Andrews
Ken Foree
Peter Washington
Scott H. Reiniger
Roger "Trooper" DeMarco
Gaylen Ross
Francine "Fran" Parker
David Crawford
Dr. James Foster
David Early
Sidney Berman
Richard France
Dr. Milliard Rausch
Howard Smith
TV Commentator

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: George A. Romero
Writers: George A. Romero
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $0.6M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $55M — a 85.9× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

48 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Living Dead Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by George A. Romero, shot by Michael Gornick. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Agostino Marangolo. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor George A. Romero shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

David Emge and Ken Foree and Scott H. Reiniger carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

George A. Romero directs. Michael Gornick behind the camera. Agostino Marangolo scores. George A. Romero cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $0.6M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Grossed $55M — a 85.9× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
348 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
4Part of the "Living Dead Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
5Directed by George A. Romero, shot by Michael Gornick. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Agostino Marangolo. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor George A. Romero shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8David Emge and Ken Foree and Scott H. Reiniger carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "When there’s no more room in HELL, the dead will walk the EARTH!".
10IMDB entry: tt0077402 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 28 themes, including "helicopter", "army", "chaos", "bite".
12Released under 26 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Michael Gornick
Original score: Agostino Marangolo
Editing: George A. Romero
Costume design: Josie Caruso
Makeup / hair: Tom Savini
Sound: Rick Dior
Runtime: 127 min · 2h 7m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $640,000
Box office: $55,000,000
Return: 8594% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Rotten Tomatoes: 92% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 71/100
IMDB rating: 7.8/10 · 135,945 votes
MPAA: Unrated

Awards

3 wins & 2 nominations total

Part of

Living Dead Collection

Night of the Living Dead is a series of zombie horror films written and directed by George A. Romero beginning with the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead written by Romero and John A. Russo. The loosely connected franchise predominantly centers on different groups of people attempting to survive during the outbreak and evolution of a zombie apocalypse.

Also by

George A. Romero

Stills · wallpapers

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

talisencrw2016-07-03
★ 9/10
This is one of the finest sequels ever, in that it's both of comparable quality with the original, yet is fundamentally different from it at the same time. Marvelous stuff, with aspects copied thousands of times over the past two generations, with no end in sight. This and 'Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom', from about the same time frame, would make one of the best double-bills ever on the evils of consumerism gone rampant...
Wuchak2018-08-22
★ 8/10
Romero’s imaginative and thrilling zombie sequel A decade after the excellent “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), writer/director George Romero offers up this exceptional sequel. The plague of reanimated corpses with a hunger for warm flesh is now global and society is increasingly breaking down. A television exec (Gaylen Ross), her helicopter-reporter beau (David Emge) and two SWAT officers (Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger) take refuge in a suburban mall. Unfortunately for them, a veritable army of biker-raiders wants the mall for their own. One of the main reasons this film is so iconic is because Romero seriously considered what it would be like after a ‘zombie apocalypse’ and came up with an inspired story. While the bleakness of the situation is addressed there’s also a sense of adventurous freedom; for instance, the protagonists having an entire mall to themselves. The movie’s disturbing, ghastly and gory, but also action-packed and sometimes humorous. The zombies make for good bullet fodder while, at the same time, satirizing consumer society. The creative score is varied and I’m sure it was cutting edge at the time, but it’s very dated today, although you’ll probably find yourself acclimating to it. The no-name cast is convincing with the towering Foree standing out while Emge comes across as a poor man’s Donald Sutherland. The movie runs 2 hours, 7 minutes with the longer version running 2 hours, 19 minutes (the one I watched). It was shot in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, and nearby Pittsburgh. GRADE: A-
JPV8522020-12-16
★ 8/10
Been a while since I last watched this one, but with the new 4K UHD out, decided to give it another watch going with the Extended Cut. Still very well made with some great zombie effects and really liked the characters, Peter (Ken Foree), especially. I'm not a big fan of the zombie horror genre but this is one of the exceptions. 4.0/5