DAWN OF THE DEAD

A mysterious plague spreads across the world, resurrecting the dead and turning them into zombies hungry for human flesh. Anyone bitten by these undead contracts the same "disease." In no time, the epidemic spreads like wildfire, and urban areas, teeming with zombies, become the least safe places to be. Three men and a woman decide to flee the cities and find refuge in a massive abandoned shopping mall on the outskirts. They transform it into an impenetrable bunker for the "undead," but not for humans. A gang of criminals, eager to seize the supplies still present in the mall, attacks the refuge, destroying its defenses. Now, zombies can also enter, unleashing a massacre that leaves only two survivors. Directed by the great Romero, who in 1968 reinvented the zombie myth with "Night of the Living Dead," and co-produced and presented in Italy by Dario Argento, the film is a masterpiece for horror cinema lovers: tension, delirium, a sense of dread, disgust, extreme gore, action, and fear. But "Zombi" doesn't stop there: Romero's film also carries a clear political message, a critique of an American societal model based on consumerism and capitalism. The choice of setting the film in a shopping mall is no coincidence: in this enormous building, the protagonists not only find a temporary refuge from death but also a sort of "bastion" of civilization, attracting the undead like so many "mindless" consumers. Outside, society as they knew it is inevitably crumbling under the attack of an unexpected and seemingly inexplicable force (the zombies), ready to overturn the established order and finally reign (free) in total and feverish chaos. The magnificent makeup effects are the work of special effects wizard Tom Savini, who also appears in the film as an actor, playing one of the bikers attacking the supermarket. The soundtrack is courtesy of the legendary Goblin, then famous worldwide for the splendid music of "Deep Red." One last curiosity: Romero himself makes a brief appearance at the beginning of the film as the director of the television station.