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"Dawn of the Dead" is not simply an extension of George A. Romero's debut "Night of the Living Dead", it is a complete overhaul, expanding on every aspect of the original whilst retaining a low-budget sensibility without diminishing the quality of the production. However, the main premise remains: social order has once again collapsed with the inexplicable reanimation of corpses. Rural communities are not overrun but the urban centres are swarming with zombie hordes all returning to the places instinctive to them. Crucially, this distinguishes "Dawn of the Dead" from its predecessor. "Night of the Living Dead" concentrated its action on an isolated rural house and limited the number of zombies, whereas "Dawn of the Dead" consolidates its activity within the confines of a shopping mall, thus inflating the possibilities of the story and its commentary on human nature in the event of disaster, i.e. those who capitalise on the opportunity to indulge in whatever civil and criminal law forbade them from doing (embodied as racist SWAT team officers, rednecks, militant biker gangs). Bolstered by a cast of actors who are able to act (in contrast to his first film) Romero's new band of gutsy, somewhat parsimonious, and therefore more identifiable, survivors are a pair of SWAT team members and a pregnant TV news broadcaster couple, i.e. characters able to rationalise and deal with a crisis without descending into hysteria and anarchy.
Once holed up in a shopping mall after eradicating the interior undead and blocking off the entrance, one of the SWAT team members becomes reckless and ends up bitten, leading the gang to fulfil their consumerist fantasies and end up corrupted by hedonism and materialism. In adding exposition and potency to the proceedings, Romero's follow-up to his lo-fi zombie allegory of the previous decade has still not been surpassed. Taking refuge in a shopping mall is exactly what rational survivors would do, but in doing so, the characters are infiltrated by the mindless consumerist values affecting the zombie plague who return instinctively to the place they know best. It is testament to Romero's vision that the indoor mall, even replete with the walking dead, actually resembles the reality of shopping centres in any part of the developing world. In being provided with endless convenience and epicurean enjoyment until the world ends, the film's characters are rendered as brainless as the corpses they view as inferior. Operating on the surface as an indictment of capitalism at large, and how it effectively turns us all into zombies, the pessimistic allegorical elements of "Dawn of the Dead" elevate the film into the annals of cinema history, beyond the usual intelligent, more sophisticated horror classics afforded such reverence; Romero's prescient sophomore zombie outing has lost none of its ability to shock, and is perhaps as damning and scathing of modern society (alive or dead) than any other film of its ilk. By developing the script's themes with explicit satirical subtext applied to the living under siege context, interesting (but still wooden) characters and uniformly more proficient (and gory) special effects, Romero's game-changing revision of his weak debut is broader, infinitely more compelling and in turn, the far superior work of prophetic, deliriously grisly satire.
