Laurel Group
David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, David Crawford, David Early, Richard France
This classic horror flick from director George A. Romero begins with an undead army of flesh-eating zombies taking over every major city in the United States. Running for their lives, Peter (Ken Foree), Roger (Scott H. Reiniger), Stephen (David Emge) and Frances (Gaylen Ross) escape only to find refuge in a remote shopping mall. They seclude themselves using the supplies in the stores and blocking entrances and fortifying the place while hunting the zombies on the inside one by one and learning how to survive in this new world, only to discover they have to fight a really bad motorcycle gang, too. A terror and violence fest, this film takes over right after “The Night of the Living Dead” and carries the story forward with very little background about why it’s happening. It is what it is, and they just have to deal with it.
Night of the Living Dead was filmed in and around Zelienople and Cranberry Township Pennsyvania starring some of the local TV personalities and a slew of local extras. It’s black and white and grainy, and very, very low budget horror, but became a world-wide sensation and brought back the Zombie flick and started the slasher films that have gone on ever since. Some years later, George took the money he made from the shoestring budget Night of the Living Dead, and tried to repeat his success in Color, moving on up to the Monroeville Mall, and using better special effects. Now Zombies are mostly blue skinned and still are the slow, stupid zombies of George Romero films. Now instead of being simply terrified of the monsters, they are learning how to deal with them. Many times, just running fast and knocking them down is enough to get away from the stupid walking dead. But if they catch you and pin you down, they are REALLY hungry.
The first 15 minutes of this film is awful. I watched it over twice trying to get what’s going on, but it’s hopeless. The first film has a lot of scenes of TV reporters telling us what’s going on. This film starts out in the studio where some imbecile talking heads are arguing about what to do about the zombies while the people running the station are running around, fighting, and talking. It’s pure chaos and would cause most people to turn the film off in the first few minutes. During this, the seemingly endless titles come up. Stick with it as it’s going to get a lot better. After a period of “What the hell?” moments, they land at the mall and the movie gets going. This film has a lot of humor, and the group love to make a mockery of the zombies. Why not? They have come to realize that they aren’t human, and are really, really stupid. The find out how to trick them to their own benefit, and really don’t take the whole thing that serious. This gives a unique feel to this movie, as these people are in a life and death situation, and enjoy browsing the aisles of the store looking for things to steal to complete their wardrobe!
The motorcycle gang is WAY over the top too, but unlike Night of the Living Dead, you’re supposed to enjoy and laugh your way through this one. It’s not bad, it’s just a whole different feel. As awful as the world has become, this bunch make the best of living in the mall!
This is a very old movie, and it was remade some years ago, but everyone should see the original of this film, especially after Night of the Living Dead. This is the roots of our modern horror genre, and we can certainly see where it all started. These films were made by people who simply loved horror films, and it shows. Yes, there is camp, and some parts are really silly. But it’s easy to see what made these films so very, very popular in their time, and started us down the road to hundreds of future slasher horror films until today. Very worthwhile to view the classics of the past, and I recommend you to watch it if you haven’t seen it before, or catch it on late night TV. With today’s DVD and BluRay technology, we can see these films looking better than they originally did in the theater.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
