Dawn of the Dead (4K Ultra-HD) [Blu-ray] [2021]

Product Information

Romero's Dawn of the Dead remains a horror masterpiece, featuring poignantly relevant themes on modernity and consumerism. Night may have sown the seeds of the zombie genre, but Dawn kicked the doors down and helped it become one of horror’s biggest subgenres (aside from the slasher perhaps) and a cultural phenomenon. The whole film ends with a wonderful, sweet story about how Romero kept the legend of Father Christmas alive for his kids. presentation is still quite robust with plenty of atmospherics and ambience, as well as deep, booming LFE.

The release date got pushed back a couple of times after an early tease, so the film’s many fans have been chomping at the bit for this for a long time. Missing from Anchor Bay’s legendary 4-Disc Ultimate Edition DVD release is a Monroeville Mall commercial and tour video, the 1989 version of Document of the Dead, several still galleries, additional radio spots, a 28-page mini-comic book (which was included in the set as swag), and five Easter eggs: a short interview with Tom Savini about a practical joke he once pulled; a short interview with Gaylen Ross; a testimonial from a Buddist Monk; an interview with Christine Forrest about how she met George; an interview with Greg Nicotero on how Tom Savini created the helicopter zombie; and an interview with John Harrison, the screwdriver zombie. I just watched the theatrical cut all the way through and caught glimpses of the others while I listened to their commentaries.The mono track is clean and bright, and as faithful as you can get to the original cinematic experience. Shadows are more gray looking overall and they’re also a bit crushed, lacking the truly deep blacks and bold highlights of the other 4K presentations. Finally, the ‘Zombies and Bikers’ extended featurette offers an entertaining look at what it was like to be one of the film’s many extras. Dawn is certainly a reflection of its time, dated in every conceivable way, but its concepts and execution are still key to its long-term success. As previously mentioned, the notion of fast-moving zombies has been more or less erased from the zombie lexicon, but there are certain visuals and sequences that hold up.

Romero's Dawn of the Dead is widely appreciated as one of the best and most influential horror films.It's a horror masterpiece that uses the horde of mindless walking dead as a stark, poignant satire on modern consumerism, but what continues to interest me most of the film four decades later is society's insatiable hunger for purchased goods. By the third act, Dawn of the Dead takes from videogames in their worst ways, using propane tanks multiple times like grenades to take down the horde. Just the idea of that, with everything you could ever want or need, satisfies a consumer fantasy that many would gladly participate in. A generation or two down from the OCN, the internegative is softer overall, with slightly less refined detail.

Not included from the Synapse Films Blu-ray release of The Definitive Document of the Dead ( which we’ve also previously reviewed) is the original 60-minute version of the film.Back in 2017, Scream Factory unleashed a pretty stacked 2-disc edition of Zack Snyder and James Gunn’s retread through the mall zombie epic Dawn of the Dead.

In setting the film in a mall and watching how possessive and corrupted the characters get over their horde of ‘stuff’, Romero adds a healthy dose of satire surrounding consumerism. The second half goes long beyond the film’s release, looking at the rest of Romero’s career and how it, and the film industry, changed after Dawn. Interestingly, a much more bleak ending was planned and even partly shot, but Romero changed his mind during the shoot and opted for the admittedly slightly corny (a word the director himself uses) finale we get.In Europe, Second Sight Films raises the dead on 4K Ultra HD as an awesome seven-disc limited edition box set with brand-new 4K presentations for all three versions of Romero's cult classic, making them the definitive watch at home. Some German releases also included a fourth version of the film, entitled The Ultimate Cut which combined footage from all three versions, as well as a featurette detailing its creation (but this is not considered an official release by anyone associated with the production).