| Dawn of the Dead Trivia: Sequel to 'Night of the Living Dead' (Duh!) Filmed on location in Monroville Mall, Pittsburgh Roy Frumkes who directed the documentary, 'Document of the Dead' plays a zombie in the final scenes of the film. In the pie throwing sequence, Roy is the first zombie to get hit with a pie. His co-worker on the documentary also plays a zombie in the movie and is hit in the face with a pie too. The production staff had to take out an insurance policy for the film-makers so if some 'little old lady' saw a zombie walking through the mall in the morning after filming, they would be insured for any harm she might suffer from shock! The film team were allowed to film in the mall from 11p.m to 7a.m each day. They were also allowed one half-day of outdoor day shooting each week, which was on a Wednesday when the mall closed after lunch. All the guns in the movie are in fact plastic replicas. The original double suicide ending was indeed filmed, but only once at a test level. The footage they got didn't seem to work out right, and so, the script was changed on a whim by Romero. Apparently no film-footage of this scene exists anymore after a flood in the storage facility where the footage was kept. The movie cost $1.5 million to make. The movie shoot began in late 1978 and concluded in early 1979. This explains the confliction with the dates on the backs of video releases of the movie. During December, Romero took a month off shooting to edit the footage they had into release form. He was forced to, as removing Christmas decorations every night and restore them every morning, which would have cost them valuable shooting time. The Argento cut of the movie for Italian release was rumoured to have had his name in the place of Romero's for Director, but this was never confirmed. Argento's cut also contains much, much more Goblin music, whereas Romero's ultimate, Director's Cut of the movie contains more stock music and less Goblin tracks. The movie suffered badly in Japan where it was cut badly. In most cases of cuts to the violence, the film stopped on a frame, letting the sound continue running and then when the gore was over, the image started up again, after the violent scenes! Ken Foree who played Peter has also starred in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 in the role of Benny. Foree has also played long running part in kid's sitcom of errors, Kenan and Kel, in tha part of Kenan's father! David Emge paints pictures of his character being shot as a zombie and signs them for fans at conventions! What a star he is! Gaylen Ross was the only main cast member not to be interviewed on Document of the Dead. Romero plays two cameo parts in the movie. One as a television control manager in the beginning credits of the movie, he also appears with his wife, Christine. His second cameo was as a zombie, dressed as Santa Claus in the background of one of the shots during the pie sequence. Rumour has it he also played one of the bikers too. It has also been noticed that in the shots of the bikers as they are ready to take off towards the mall to attack, one of the bikers looks amazingly like Tom Hanks. The biker has a beard, a blue bandana and is shown twice right next to the camera, staring into the distance. Whether it was Tom Hanks in secret remains to be seen! JC Penny's is the only remaining store in the mall from the days of Dawn's shoot. The store remains there today, but restyled since the lino-tastic days of the 1970's. Breaking televisions with sledgehammers is actually quite dangerous, especially back in the 1970's when they weren't as sophisticated. Breaking the tube means that toxic gasses are released. When the large, bearded biker breaks the large television, you can actually see the gas rise out of the broken screen. Good thing he didn't breathe it in, he might have become a zombie! Frequently through the movie, zombies who should have been killed during the hunt make a re-appearance in the end of the film too! But budget dictates this, so we'll forgive Romero :) In the UK, only 6 seconds were cut from the Director's Cut. Shots cut were one bite to the woman from her zombie-husband, the loss of the famous head-explosion shot and all shots of the zombie-children getting blasted, including the sound of the emptying of an entire magazine of ammo on them. The sound was reduced to two shots. The famous head explosion shot was actually brought about with a real shotgun blast, for extra realism! The head was infact a standby head which was moulded from Gaylen's head for the double suicide ending, which was dropped during shooting. The late Vince Survinski also served as a member of staff on the film. He was the business manager. He also played one of the hunters at the end of Night of the Living Dead, his character shot Ben. Whether that was racially motivated or just being mistaken for a zombie remains to be confirmed. Romero fought with the distributors to keep his cut of the film long instead of something like 90 minutes. He also wrote an article for a newspaper on why the 'X' rating is misinterpreted for horror films. Romero says that if people see the 'X' rating, they automatically think the film is obscene, possibly containing a violently strong, sexual content. Of course with Dawn of the Dead, this is not so. Mary Whitehouse was reported to have been disgusted by this film. But that's not surprising as she'd probably find something wrong with a PG! The casting director for Dawn of the Dead, John Amplas, played Martin in the film of the same name, directed by Romero. He also played Fisher in Day of the Dead. The mall music was written into the script as the film-makers didn't know how to turn it off. Dawn of the Dead is cut to shreds in Germany. |