Production

James Gunn is only partially responsible for the screenplay, despite receiving solo writing credit. After he left the project to concentrate on Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, both Michael Tolkin and Scott Frank were brought in for rewrites. In a commentary track on the Ultimate Edition DVD for the original Dawn, producer Richard P. Rubenstein explained that Tolkin further developed the characters, while Frank provided some of the bigger and upbeat action sequences.

The mall scenes of the film as well as the rooftop scenes were shot in the Thornhill Square Shopping Centre in Thornhill, Ontario and the rest of the scenes were shot in the Aileen-Willowbrook Neighborhood of Thornhill, Ontario. The set for Ana and Louis’s bedroom was constructed in a backroom of the mall. The mall was defunct, which is the reason the production used it; the movie crew completely renovated the structure, and stocked it with fictitious stores after Starbucks Coffee and numerous other corporations refused to let their names be used  (two exceptions to this are Roots and Panasonic). Most of the mall was demolished shortly after the film was shot. The fictitious stores include a coffeeshop called Hallowed Grounds (a lyric from Johnny Cash’s song “The Man Comes Around,” which was used over the opening credits), and an upscale department store called Gaylen Ross (an in-joke reference to one of the stars of the original 1978 movie).

The first half of the film was shot almost entirely in chronological order, while the final sequences on the boat and island were shot much later and at a different location (Universal Studios Hollywood) than the rest of the movie, after preview audiences objected to the sudden ending of the original print.

Cast

• Sarah Polley - Ana Clark
• Ving Rhames - Kenneth Hall
• Jake Weber – Michael
• Michael Kelly - C.J.
• Kevin Zegers - Terry
• Lindy Booth - Nicole
• Mekhi Phifer -  Andre
• Inna Korobkina - Luda
• Ty Burrell - Steve Markus
• Michael Barry - Bart
• Jayne Eastwood - Norma

Dawn of the Dead was shot over approximately four months, from late 1977 to early 1978, in the Pennsylvania cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Monroeville. Its primary location is set in the Monroeville Mall. The film was made on a relatively modest budget estimated at US$650,000, and was a significant box office success for its time, grossing an estimated $55 million worldwide. Since opening in theaters in 1978, reviews for the film have been nearly unanimously positive.

In addition to three official sequels, the film has spawned numerous parodies and pop culture references. A remake of the movie premiered in the United States on March 19, 2004. Labeled a “re-imagining” of the original film’s concept, several major themes, including the primary setting in a shopping mall, remain essentially the same. Cultural and film historians read significance into the film’s plot, linking it to critiques of large corporations and American consumerism and of the social decadence and excess going on in America during the late 1970s.

Cast

• David Emge as Stephen “Flyboy” Andrews
• Ken Foree as Peter Washington
• Scott H. Reiniger as Roger DeMarco
• Gaylen Ross as Francine Parker
• David Crawford as Dr. James Foster
• David Early as Sidney Berman
• Richard France as Dr. Millard Rausch
• Howard Smith as the TV Commentator
• James A. Baffico as Wooley, Insane SWAT Cop
• Tommy Lafitte as Miguel, The Zombie(uncredited)
• Sharon Ceccatti as Lead Zombie (Nurse)
• Pam Chattfield as Lead Zombie
• Mike Christopher as Lead Zombie (Hare Krishna)

Braindead is in the same vein as Jackson’s earlier works Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles but Braindead is rather more polished, with a budget of around $3 million. Although it starts with the capture of a zombie-creating creature on the eerie Skull Island, the movie is relatively low-key in its opening half. Only in the second part does it spiral out of control into a blood-filled zombie film.

Jackson reused the song played on the organ as the mourners wait to enter the church prior to the embalming scene. It is Sodomy from Peter Jackson’s previous film Meet the Feebles (1989).

Lawsuit

The film was subject to a lawsuit. In Bradley vs. Wingnut Films Ltd [1993] 1 NZLR 415, it was alleged that the comedy horror film Brain Dead had infringed the privacy of the plaintiffs by containing pictures of the plaintiff’s family tombstone. The tombstone appeared on the film for less than 14 seconds. It never appeared in its entirety, only the letters “BRA” were visible behind a person sitting on the wall at the side of the plot. After reviewing the New Zealand judicial authorities on privacy, Gallen J stated: the present situation in New Zealand … is that there are three strong statements in the High Court in favour of the existence of such a tort in this country and an acceptance by the Court of Appeal that the concept is at least arguable. This case became one of a series of cases which contributed to the introduction of Tort of Invasions of Privacy in New Zealand.

Cast

• Timothy Balme as Lionel Cosgrove
• Diana Peñalver as Paquita Maria Sanchez
• Elizabeth Moody as Mum (Vera Cosgrove)
• Ian Watkin as Uncle Les
• Brenda Kendall as Nurse McTavish
• Stuart Devenie as Father McGruder
• Jed Brophy as Void
• Stephen Papps as Zombie McGruder
• Murray Keane as Scroat
• Glenis Levestam as Nora Matheson
• Lewis Rowe as Mr. Matheson
• Elizabeth Mulfaxe as Rita
• Harry Sinclair as Roger
• Davina Whitehouse as Paquita’s Grandmother

George Romero completed the film on a $114,000 budget, and after a decade of cinematic re-releases, it grossed some $12 million domestically and $30 million internationally. On its release in 1968, Night of the Living Dead was strongly criticized for its explicit content. In 1999, the Library of Congress registered it to the National Film Registry as a film deemed “historically, culturally or aesthetically important”.

Night of the Living Dead had a great impact upon the culture of the Vietnam-era United States, because it is laden with critiques of late-1960s U.S. society; a historian described it as “subversive on many levels”. Although it is not the first zombie film, Night of the Living Dead is the progenitor of the contemporary “zombie apocalypse” sub-genre of horror film, and it influenced the modern pop-culture zombie archetype. Night of the Living Dead (1968), is the first of five Dead films directed by George Romero, and twice has been remade, as Night of the Living Dead (1990 film), directed by Tom Savini, and as Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006).

Influence

Director George Romero revolutionized the horror film genre with Night of the Living Dead; per Almar Haflidason, of the BBC, the film represented “a new dawn in horror film-making”. The film has also effectively redefined the use of the term Zombie. Early zombie films — Victor Halperin’s White Zombie (1932), Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked with a Zombie (1943) — concerned living people enslaved by a Voodoo witch doctor; many were set in the Caribbean.

The film and its successors spawned countless imitators that borrowed elements instituted by Romero: Tombs of the Blind Dead, Zombie, Hell of the Living Dead, The Evil Dead, Night of the Comet, Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Creeps, Braindead, Children of the Living Dead, and the video game series Resident Evil (later adapted as films in 2002, 2004, and 2007), Dead Rising, and House of the Dead. Night of the Living Dead is parodied in films such as Night of the Living Bread and Shaun of the Dead, and in episodes of The Simpsons (“Treehouse of Horror III”, 1992) and South Park (“Pink Eye“, 1997; “Night of the Living Homeless”, 2007). The word zombie is never used, but Romero’s film introduced the theme of zombies as reanimated, flesh-eating cannibals.

Night of the Living Dead ushered in the slasher and splatter film sub-genres. As one film historian points out, horror prior to Romero’s film had mostly involved rubber masks and costumes, cardboard sets, or mysterious figures lurking in the shadows. They were set in locations far removed from rural and suburban America. Romero revealed the power behind exploitation and setting horror in ordinary, unexceptional locations and offered a template for making an “effective and lucrative” film on a “minuscule budget”. Slasher films of the 1970s and 80s such as John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980), and Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), for example, “owe much to the original Night of the Living Dead“.