Dawn is the gold standard of living dead cinema and it’s the first film that I was afraid to watch.
But it’s Romero’s full-blooded, full-color and near-operatic 1978 NOTLD companion film/sequel Dawn of the Dead that set the rules for the modern zombie movie.
There’s no other movie like Dawn of the Dead, not even in Romero’s own diverse and distinct cannon.
In Dawn, each zombie isn’t just a pile of gooey rubber and fake blood and decay, they are ghostly echoes of what we are.