Dawn of the Dead in popular culture
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The film Dawn of the Dead influenced popular culture in a variety of media forms and genres.
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[edit] Music
- The film was the inspiration for a number of rock songs, including:
- "Jump Around" by House of Pain ("Put out your head then you wake up in the Dawn of the Dead")
- "Early Sunsets Over Monroeville" by My Chemical Romance
- "Dead Will Walk" by Bella Morte ("When Hell is full the dead will walk the Earth.")
- "No Easy Way Out" by Ozzy Osbourne ("Night, in the shadow of man, this is the dawn of the dead"),
- "White Blues" by 80's new wave band Game Theory ("Dawn of the Dead, close your mouths 'cause they won't be fed")
- "Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton ("I don't wanna nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan? Spend your whole life locked inside a mall?")
- Two separate songs entitled "Dawn of the Dead"; one by the Murderdolls, the other by Drunk By Six [1].
- The punk group Self Destruct uses the tagline "When theres no more room...." At the beginning of one of their songs.
- The rock band Showbread has written several songs based on the film, such as "George Romero Will Be At Our Wedding".
- "George Romero" by Sprites makes direct references to the film. ("It’s the end of the world, I wanna live inside a shopping mall")
- "The Funeral Sciences", an album by the horror-rock band Schoolyard Heroes, features the song "Dawn of the Dead."
- The song "Early Sunsets Over Monroeville" by My Chemical Romance was inspired by Dawn of the Dead.
- The song "Domination" by the metal band Pantera contains the lyrics "your eyes will see the Dawn of the Dead".
- Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 also had a song titled "Dawn of the dead" that was never released on an album, but was included in the Rare Treats! section of their Little Box Of Horrors Box-set collection. The song was also re-recorded by singer Wednesday 13's later project Murderdolls on their 2003 debut album Beyond the valley of the Murderdolls. This song featured the chorus line "When theres no more room in hell, then the dead will walk walk the earth, and the living won't have a prayer, 'cause it's the Dawn of the dead".
- The song "Ouch" by be your own PET was inspired by the film, quoting the line "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth" in its chorus.
- Clips from the soundtrack have also been sampled into other tracks, such as
- Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 sampling the line "Wake up sucker, we're thieves and we're bad guys. That's exactly what we are." in their track "Mr. Motherfucker".
- Gorillaz have used various audio clips from this film in many of their songs. The stock music track "Dark Earth" (where Roger and Peter move the trucks) is sampled for the Intro track on Demon Days. The famous line "Every dead body that is not exterminated becomes one of them, it gets up and kills, the people it kills get up and kill!" is used in their B-Side song "Hip Albatross" and the music video for their song "Clint Eastwood".
- Death Metal/Grindcore band Mortician sampled the famous "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth" line in their song, "Zombie Apocalypse", which roughly outlined the film's premise.
- The famous "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth" line is also used by the German punk band Die Ärzte as an intro to the song "Anti-Zombie" from their album Geräusch.
- The Dutch Electro - Industrial band Grendel's club hit "Zombie Nation" features dialogue from both Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.
- The punk rock band The Dickies used a nod to this film with their album Dawn of the Dickies. While none of the songs referred to this film, the cover, depicting the band members set upon by "zombies" in blue make up, was an obvious salute to the film.
- Late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton regularly wore a Dawn of the Dead t-shirt onstage during the band's Master of Puppets tour.
[edit] Films
- The British comedy Shaun of the Dead both parodies and homages this movie and Romero's other films in the Dead series. The homage in this film runs deep enough that the entire movie may be considered tribute.
- The Chinese horror Bio Zombie is a parody of this film, as the plot is similar in where its characters must fight their way out of a shopping mall full of zombies. While Dawn of the Dead was a big shopping mall, the mall in this film is maze-like in design.
- There has also been a remake made with the same title.
- Characters in the film Zack and Miri Make a Porno play for a hockey team named the Monroeville Zombies, referencing both the movie and the town where it was made.[1]
[edit] Television
- In Spaced (from the makers of Shaun of the Dead) a poster for the film can be seen above the couch.
- The closing credits of Robot Chicken features a chicken-clucking version of the end theme to the film, "The Gonk".
- In The Simpsons episode "Last Tap Dance in Springfield", there is a scene where the old people are shown trying to claw their way into a shopping centre.
- The Invader ZIM episode "FBI Warning of Doom" features a sequence in which a security guard unleashes hordes of zombies into the mall, only to have them walk around aimlessly, groaning, and attacking nothing in particular.
- The South Park episode "Night of the Living Homeless" parodies the film.
[edit] Video games
- In the Capcom game Resident Evil 2, the main character Leon wears a police uniform that is modeled after the S.W.A.T. uniform Peter and Roger wear in the first part of the movie.
- In the Troika game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, there is a character by the name of "Romero" that earns his extended life as a Ghoul, by keeping the zombie infestation within a cemetery, a famous Hollywood cemetery at that, contained, and eradicated on a nightly basis.
- The Capcom game Dead Rising, takes place in a similar zombie-infested mall, and also features many comedic elements. One critic actually lauded the plot as being directly lifted from the movie. A disclaimer has been added to the opening of the game, and on the box stating: "THIS GAME WAS NOT DEVELOPED, APPROVED OR LICENSED BY THE OWNERS OF GEORGE A. ROMERO'S DAWN OF THE DEAD(tm)".[2]
- The Capcom game Breath of Fire, contains a zombie-infested village called "Romero," obviously named after the film's director.
- Twisted Metal 4 features a song borrowing a line from Dawn of the Dead, when Roger says "Man, there's a lot of people running out. I could run." Followed by an alternative line in which Roger says "Man, there's a lot of people running out. I could run. I could TRY to run."
- In the Grand Theft Auto franchise, the hearses are called Romeros, presumably named after George A. Romero.
- In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories mission "Brawn of the Dead", Vic must act in the mall in a film where he has to fend off zombies, the director resembles George A. Romero.
[edit] Other media
- Stephen King's novel Christine is dedicated to George Romero and his wife Chris Forrest Romero. The book uses the Monroeville Mall as a location.
- The manga Highschool of the Dead which borrows primarily some of the plot of this movie and the entire Dead series.
- Urban Dead a MMORPG developed by Kevan, is heavily influenced by Romero's "of the dead" series - it makes particular reference to Dawn via large malls.
