Having recently seen Romero's new Land of the Dead I decided to go back and check out some of the extra features included on the massive Ultimate DVD collection of Dawn of the Dead, which I didn't like. I remember being amazed at the sickness of Dawn of the Dead, which I consider to be by far the goriest of the trilogy. I remember being hugely unimpressed by the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead (and surprisingly impressed by the 2004 remake), so it was great to see the cast and crew talking about making the movie in this wonderful documentary.
One of my favorite individual moments in this documentary was when Tom Savini talked about how he had planned to put make-up on all of the zombies to make them look gray but that it turned out to be a bad idea because they came out so many different colors green, blue, etc, and just didn't look right. This was, if I remember correctly, one of the things that most bothered me about the 1978 Dawn because, being the first film in the trilogy to be filmed in color, the ineffective make-up was a big problem for me.
For a movie that was made nearly three decades ago, I was really surprised at how much detail they were able to get into this documentary, as well as how many of the original cast, many of them almost obscure zombies from the film, they were able to get together for interviews to talk about their experiences in making the movie. It was great to see how the town of Pittsburgh really came together to help make the movie, having been so impressed by the original film, and how much of a fun fiasco the making of the movie was for so many of the extras and for the cast.
This entire DVD collection is a wonderful compilation of information about the making of the movie and the movie itself, and even if you didn't love the film itself, as I didn't, this is definitely something to check out. I have often noticed that documentaries and other supplemental materials included with DVDs can vastly improve your opinion of a movie, and this one is no exception. Don't miss this one.
