Dawn Of The Dead (1979) Zombies In Mall

This scene from Dawn of the Dead (1979) is when the characters try to leave the mall. This scene shows historical context as the consumerism of malls was growing in America at this time. This is also an auteur style of George Romero as he likes to link to context, which backs up Andrew Sarris' Auteur Theory in his book Film Theory and Criticism. Romero’s other films also use historical context as in Day of the Dead (1985) was about scientists and soldiers hiding in an underground bunker from the zombies above which relates to the cold war between the soviet union and usa who could use nuclear weapons at any minute.  

The contrapuntal music playing in this scene is the cheesy “musak” usually played in malls which goes against what is actually happening in the mall. The mise-en-scene used in this scene is creepy locations as abandoned buildings usually have low key lighting to make them more scary and claustrophobic for the audience.

This scene also uses Montage/Slow Sequence as it shows a lot of clips of the zombies in the mall to show the audience that the zombies are everywhere in the mall waiting to get the survivors stuck in the mall. This montage shows a Tense emotion as nobody knows what will happen next.