In honor of Earth Day ...

In the interest of being all green and stuff, I'm recycling my first-ever Classic Movie Corner. It appeared in the Oct. 27, 2005, Leader print edition and makes its online debut today. For regular readers of my blog, it should be no surprise it was ...

Ken Foree in
'Dawn of the Dead'Dawn of the Dead (1978)

MPAA Rating: R
Directed by: George A. Romero
Starring: Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, Gaylen Ross, David Emge, Jese Del Gre

The Gist: It’s the end of world! Zombies are eating everyone! Wanna go to the mall?

The Story: In the second installment of Romero’s “Living Dead” series, society’s on the brink of destruction as a zombie epidemic sweeps the world. For reasons unknown, the undead are feeding on the living, who also become flesh-eating monsters. A couple of SWAT team officers (Foree and Reiniger) and TV news journalists (Ross and Emge) catch the next helicopter out of town. The group of survivors hole up in a shopping mall, where they have ready access to everything they could ever want — except freedom. How long can they hold out against starving zombies, marauding bikers and their own ennui?

The Review: Here’s the perfect Halloween movie. It has something for everybody. If you like blood and guts, prepare yourself for a hearty feast. If you like social commentary, there’s plenty of that too. Apocalyptic movies such as this one offer filmmakers the opportunity to say what they think is both wrong and right with modern society. If everything were swept away tomorrow, what would be worth preserving and what deserves to be destroyed? That’s heavy philosophy for a horror flick.

The Classic Quote: Old Priest (Del Gre): "When the dead walk, señores, we must stop the killing ... or lose the war."

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com)