- Directed by George A. Romero
- Written by George A. Romero
- Stars David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 7 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd-z5wBeFTU
Spoiler-free judgment zone
This was an excellent shuffling zombie movie with lots of action, gore, and characters you care about. The setting, mainly in the mall, is fun too. It made us nostalgic for the days when malls were more of a thing, with a better variety of store types in them. We’d rank it as the tops of the original trilogy.
Synopsis
A news crew watches some experts arguing about the current situation on the news. They’re arguing about the dead rising from the ground after the first film, “Night of the Living Dead.” The man on the TV explains all the rules of zombies. The people behind the cameras comment on the authorities’ mishandling of the situation. There’s an argument with the producer, and the news people all walk off the job. Martial law has been declared, and things are falling apart quickly. Stephen comes in and tells Fran to meet him on the roof at nine; he’ll bring the helicopter.
Meanwhile, the mostly racist police are surrounding an apartment building full of minority criminals, and they’re eager to shoot a lot of them. The Puerto Ricans shoot first, and it’s a bloody mess. Roger is with the cops, and he helps them raid the place. Roger ends up shooting one of his own bloodthirsty men to stop him. There are undead in the apartment as well. It’s very traumatizing for Roger, who leaves and meets up with Peter, another cop. Roger tells Peter about his friend with the helicopter. An old priest comes in and talks about the dead in the next room. What they see next convinces them to run.
Stephen and Fran refuel the helicopter and run into armed men. Roger and Peter arrive and scare away the looters. The four fly away. Peter’s a black man, and there’s some mild tension there right from the start. They fly over the army and rednecks in big hunting parties. They stop for more fuel and run into more of the undead. We see that Stephen’s not a very good shot.
Without anything better in mind, they land on the roof of a shopping mall. From the skylight, it looks like there are only a few dead inside. They barricade themselves into the mall offices and eat survival rations for the night. Peter suggests that they can clear out the entire mall and have access to everything downstairs. They turn on the lights, music, fountains, escalators, and the comical “shopper zombies” get all confused.
Peter and Roger break into a Penney’s and go “shopping.” They have a load of fun and then load up a wheelbarrow with supplies. Meanwhile, Stephen finally manages to kill a zombie. They use the fact that some stores have two levels to their advantage. While they’re doing their thing, Fran tries to defend herself against the littlest, weakest zombie ever– a Hari Krishna with his tambourine. The guys get back just in time to rescue her.
Stephen mentions that Fran is pregnant. The couple talks about whether an abortion is a good idea or not. Fran says that the bright and pretty mall is a kind of prison too. “We’ve got everything we need right here.” She wants to learn how to fly the helicopter, just in case.
We cut to zombies shambling through the things they did in real life; they act out of habit. Roger and Peter drive semi trucks to block the mall’s entryways. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but they get the job done. Roger gets a close call and cracks up a bit, but Peter picks him up right away. But Roger gets sloppy, and he gets bit.
They bring Roger inside and bandage him up, and he’s in a lot of pain. Peter and Stephen drop down into the hunting store for guns and ammunition. Then, they take one of the “prize” cars for a ride, shooting as they drive through the place. They lock the mall doors from the inside. It doesn’t take long to hunt down and kill all the zombies inside the mall. Then it’s clean-up time. Yuck!
Fran says that Roger’s leg infection is getting worse. Peter says he’s seen lots of guys get bitten, and none lasted more than three days. They all know what’s going to happen.
They guys make a fake wall to hide the staircase to where they sleep. Just in case a human patrol comes through, they’ll never even know those rooms are there.
Then we get a “shopping for free in the mall” montage. Peter says, “When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.” They’re still outside, pawing at the windows, trying to get in, but they can’t.
Roger takes a turn for the worse. He knows what’s coming as much as the rest of them and asks Peter to “take care of me when I go. I’m gonna try not to come back.” He soon dies, and he does, in fact, come back. Peter takes care of it as promised.
Months pass, and Fran is looking more and more pregnant. The news broadcasts end and Stephen starts to lose hope and get antsy.
Stephen teaches Fran how to fly the copter, but some raiders spot the helicopter in the air and follow it to the mall, planning to get in. The well-armed raider army gets ready for battle.
The raiders have to fight all the zombies first, and there are a lot of them out there. Inside, Stephen and Peter lock up all the stores so it’ll look like they were never there. The men outside break open the big doors, which also lets the zombies inside. Stephen says the mall “is ours” and starts shooting at the raiders, tipping them off that the mall isn’t empty.
Peter climbs into their hiding place, but one of the raiders sees them go in. Stephen gets trapped in an elevator shaft and is shot in the arm. The raiders have what they came for and ride out, leaving a mess behind them. Stephen gets bitten before Peter can get to him.
Fran wants to run to Stephen, but Peter says it’s better to just wait and see. We see later that Stephen is a zombie now too. Since zombies act on instinct, he makes his way back to the hideout, and others follow him.
Peter sees them coming and tells Fran to go up to the copter and get away from here. He doesn’t want to go along. Peter shoots Stephen. Peter puts his gun to his own head to kill himself, but then changes his mind and runs to the copter. Fran has almost taken off, but she waits for him. They don’t have much fuel, but it’s better than staying here…
Commentary
This, in my opinion, was the best of the original trilogy. Forget the zombies, who wouldn’t want to live in a mall?
Remember malls? When it came out, I thought it was just fascinating to see how the inside of a mall worked with the controls and everything. This is exactly what malls of the 70s and 80s looked like.
As the remake showed us, this whole thing gets a lot harder when the zombies aren’t slow. The individual zombies in this one aren’t particularly tough or scary, they’re just shambling dead folk. There’s a lot of gore, but the zombies are mostly just people painted blue. It’s got the expected humor and social satire, but it’s living in the mall that really sells this one.