Other Titles • Dawn of the Living Dead (1978) • Zombie: Dawn of the Dead (1978) • Zombies (1978) • George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) • Zombie (1979) • Zombie - Das Original (1979) • Zombie - Dawn of the Dead (1979) • Zombies im Kaufhaus (1979) • Zombi
Trivia from Dawn of the Dead (1978)
1
DAWN OF THE DEAD went into production in November 1977, with a budget of $1.5 million.
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2
Theatrical release: April 10, 1979 (USA).
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3
The mall sequences were filmed at the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, PA. The tenement scenes were shot in Pittsburgh's Hill District, the area upon which the TV series HILL STREET BLUES was based.
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4
The editing of the 121-minute Italian version was supervised by co-producer Dario Argento.
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5
Several versions of the film exist, as a result of the censorship policies of different countries.
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6
Director George Romero makes a cameo appearance in the television station at the beginning of the film.
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Gore maestro Tom Savini appears as the leader of a biker gang who is eviscerated by zombies in the shopping mall.
8
Most of the 143 storeowners in the mall allowed their stores to be photographed in the film.
9
In the scene in the TV station, Fran (Gaylen Ross) calls Steven "David," the actor's real name.
10
In the first two movies of the Living Dead series, the main characters wield a lever-action rifle. This is referenced in Shaun of the Dead, a British comedy film.
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Tom Savini, the make-up and cosmetic special effects artist for the movie, is seen in several bit roles. Notable among these, he plays one of the leaders of the biker gang who is addressed as "Blades" for his use of sharp implements, and as the zombie who breaks the window of a truck before being shot by Roger with a revolver. Savini reprised his "Blades" role as a brief cameo in Land of the Dead.
12
The vaguely uplifting finale on the final cut of the film was not what Romero had originally planned. According to the screenplay, Peter was to shoot himself in the head instead of making a heroic escape. Fran would commit suicide by thrusting her head into the rotating blades of the helicopter's propeller. The credits would run over the shot of the helicopter's blades, until the end of the credit roll, when the engine winds down, implying that Fran and Peter would not have had enough fuel to escape. While no footage of this ending has made it to any of the special edition DVD releases, actor Ken Foree said in an interview that he remembers filming the alternate ending. Much of the lead-up to the two suicides was left in the film, as Fran stands on the roof doing nothing as zombies approach, and Peter puts a gun to his head, ready to shoot himself, before suddenly deciding to live and shooting zombies as heroic music plays.
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The specially-created head model which was to be used to film Fran's decapitation by the helicopter was instead used to film the infamous exploding head scene, early on in the film.
14
George A. Romero makes two cameos in this movie: as the director in the television studio and as the Santa Claus biker who is briefly visible in biker raid.
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Christine Forrest Romero (George Romero's wife) makes a cameo as the director's assistant in the television studio.
16
In the montage featuring Rednecks and the National Guard shooting zombies for entertainment, the white car that explodes is intended to be Barbara and Johnny's car from Night of the Living Dead.
17
Band My Chemical Romance makes direct references to this movie in the song "Early Sunsets Over Monroeville" from their first album I Bought You My Bullets, You Bought Me Your Love. The line "there's no room in this hell" comes from the movie's tagline "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth." Also the "up and down escalators. Pennies and colder fountains. Elevators and half priced sales," part of the song is from when the zombies were walking around Monroeville Mall.
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Shooting of the film in the Monroeville Mall was interrupted for the Christmas season. The mall had been decorated with Christmas displays and it would have been too expensive and time-consuming to take them down and replace them every night.
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Much of the music used in the film was taken from the Music de Wolfe Library, a much utilized source of stock music for film and TV projects.
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The Monroeville Mall has become something of a tourist attraction, drawing fans of the film from around the world. However, much of the mall has been renovated since the film was shot, and the ice skating rink has been replaced with a food court. The Living Dead movies Romero-directed: Night of the Living Dead | Dawn of the Dead | Day of the Dead | Land of the Dead Remakes: Night of the Living Dead (1990) | Dawn of the Dead (2004)
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