Dawn of the Dead in popular culture

The film Dawn of the Dead influenced popular culture in a variety of media forms and genres.

Music
  • The film was the inspiration for a number of rock songs, including:
    • Electro Rock band Does It Offend You, Yeah? have a song called "Dawn of the Dead".
    • Punk musician Michale Graves has a song called "Dawn of the Dead".
    • 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 there's no more room in hell, then the dead will 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.
    • Though not directly inspired to create any work based on the movie, the late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton was an ardent fan, often appearing in public and in photographs wearing a shirt displaying the film's title logo across his chest.
  • 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!" (as well as other sound effects of zombies and audio clips from "Day of the Dead") is used in their B-side song "Hip Albatross" and the music video for their song "Clint Eastwood". The line "These creatures are nothing but pure, motorized instinct" is seen when you enter the bonus disc to their DVD, Phase One: Celebrity Take Down. It is on the cabinet.
    • 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 used by the German punk band Die Ärzte as an intro to the song "Anti-Zombie" from their album Geräusch.
    • A variation of the famous line, "When there is no room in hell, the dead will walk the earth" is used by the British band Fightstar in the song "One Day Son", from their album One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours.
    • 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.
    • Rapper B the Killa MC uses the "When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth" sample at the beginning of his song "Saturday Morning".

Films
  • Characters in the Kevin Smith 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]
  • 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 a tribute. Romero appreciated it so much that he gave writer/star Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright cameos as zombies in his 2005 film Land of the Dead.
  • The Hong Kong 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.

Television
  • The Simpsons episode "Last Tap Dance in Springfield" has a scene where the old people are shown trying to claw their way into a shopping center.
  • 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 remake of the film.
  • The animated television series Robot Chicken uses a vocal cover of "The Gonk" from the film's credits for its own credits theme, performed by replacing the brass instruments of the original piece with humorous chicken sounds.

Games

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. The series was modeled after George A. Romero's films. In fact, Romero himself directed the live-action Japanese trailer to the game. Also in the opening scene of Resident Evil Outbreak File #2 there is a scene with a crowd of zombies walking towards the screen, the teenage girl zombie at the front on the right hand side is wearing a white T-shirt. It says "Dawn of the Dead" on it, a clear reference to the classic zombie movie.
  • In the Troika game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, a character by the name of "Romero" earns his extended life as a Ghoul, by keeping the zombie infestation within a famous Hollywood cemetery 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. 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]
  • 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, and the director resembles George A. Romero.
  • The first-person shooter Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death contains a whole level in which Judge Dredd must fight his way through a mall that has been taken over by zombies.
  • The game Blood contains a secret level (named Mall of the Dead) presenting a zombie-infested shopping mall which player escapes by a helicopter on the roof.
  • The video game Zombi (and its remake ZombiU) are both inspired by Dawn of the Dead.
  • The video game No More Room in Hell 's title is a reference to the quote "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth".

Tabletop games
  • Zombies!!!, a tile-based strategy board game published by Twilight Creations, is an homage to cinematic zombies, especially those of George Romero. In direct homage to Dawn of The Dead, Zombies!!! players must battle the titular monsters to reach an escape helicopter at the edge of town. Further homage continues in an expansion set, Zombies!!! 3: Mall Walkers, which adds a shopping mall to the locations in the base game.
  • Zombie Dice, a party dice game published by Steve Jackson Games, relies heavily on the tropes and milieu of cinematic zombies, particularly "Romero Zombies". In this game, players are zombies and try to accumulate more "brains" (i.e. points) than the other players.
  • Dawn of the Dead, an out-of-print board game, was based on the original film and published by Simulations Publications in 1978. Players attempt to clear and secure a shopping mall full of zombies without being killed. Cardboard pieces represent humans and zombies.

Books

References
  1. "NewsAskew.com". Archived from the original on 2008-05-13. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
  2. Review - Dead Rising
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