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| Digitally enhanced screenshot from the opening credits of the UK Intervision VHS 1982 |
George Romero's Zombies Dawn of the Dead was released in the United States in 1979 and had it's first release in the UK from 1980. It continued to be screened throughout 1981. Initially it was always titled "Zombies Dawn of the Dead" or even just "Zombies". The "Zombies" was mostly dropped on later releases, being referred to as just "Dawn of the Dead".
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| The UK 'quad' film poster I once had on my bedroom wall |
I was a teenager when I first saw Zombies Dawn of the Dead at the cinema in the UK during 1981. It was an afternoon double bill matinee with David Cronenburg's The Brood. There were often such 'double bill's' being shown which was great. It seems strange now to think we would be sat in a cinema half the day watching films.
I later bought a UK quad cinema poster featuring the double bill of these films. I paid about £14 at that time and they now sell for several hundred. When I moved house I promised to give it to a work colleague. It was mounted on my bedroom wall with BluTak. Unfortunately I was too careless when removing it and managed to put a sizeable rip through the poster. The colleague at work was still grateful. There's now some very optimistic sellers asking up to £500 for these posters today!
The example below was being offered for £275 on eBay in November 2023. What usually happens is you don't have anywhere to display it so it ends up being stored until you decide to sell it. About the same time I also spotted another at a more reasonable price of £75.
Some of the most popular cinema posters like Star Wars, have increased value considerably over the last decade. I saw these for sell for about £400 around 15 years ago and now sellers are asking £4,000. There seems to be alot of hype with such collectables and a fortunate few with deep pockets are fuelling the increase.
Here's the standard quad poster which was used in the UK - brilliant artwork in my opinion.
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| Birmingham Mail - Monday 3 March 1980 |
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Birmingham Mail - Saturday 15 March 1980
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| The Harrow Observer - Friday 27 June 1980 |
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| Bristol Evening Post cinema listings 1982. Dawn of the Dead was listed simply as 'Zombies' |
Around the same time I saw Dead & Buried with Orchard End Murders double bill and The Burning on another visit. There seemed to be plenty of low budget horror films at that time.
During the 1980's at school all the boys had these cotton web haversack style backpack school bags. It was common to write your favourite music bands on the back. I chose to put film names on the back of mine as seen below on the only surviving photo I have of my school bag. I painted Zombies on the bottom, Wolfen at the top and Mad Max 2 on the right side in black. At one point I also had "The Crazies" (George Romero film) added and some classmate once said they hadn't heard of that music band before. I also had the Close Encounters of the Third Kind artwork painted onto the top closing 'flap'. The bag went straight into the rubbish bin once I left school.
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| My 1980's school bag with film names painted on it |
During the 1990's I managed to accumulate most if not all of the US/British VHS releases plus many of the DVD releases. I sold all these following a house move over 10 years ago. In recent years my interest resurfaced so I started to compile here information I still had. This included some digital transfers from VHS and scans from magazines.
The VHS releases of Zombies Dawn of the Dead are shown below. I owned at least two copies of the Intervision pre-cert VHS from the early 1980's. The UK Intervision VHS release has the best artwork in my opinion. The first issue on VHS originally came in a cardboard box. These were usually cut open to fit into the large size plastic VHS boxes used by video rental companies in the early days.
British VHS pre cert Values (£23-£200)
One of the examples I owned was almost complete with just one cut line across one edge. The second version was missing one end side. Finding one with a completely unbroken cardboard sleeve is rare and will fetch a premium value. In October 2022 a tape with complete cardboard sleeve sold for £110. Most of the cut versions can still be found relatively cheaply, even though some sellers are trying to cash in and ask too much. It's a niche market and not many people are prepared to pay too much for these. That's often why sellers start with a very high 'buy-it-now' price, in the hope of getting lucky. If it followed the auction format it's very unlikely to reach so much.
Recent popularity and nostalgia regarding British pre-certification video tapes have pushed values upwards. There's often a cycle of nostalgia, so young people who remember or watched these in the early 1980's are now in their 50's. They can remember what the media labelled 'video nasties' before there were any age restrictions on video tapes. They now want to own the films they enjoyed watching, or were too young to watch at the time but new about them. There are also people who want to collect only the 'video nasties' and can afford to pay over £100 in some cases. From that point of view, now is the best time to sell if you have one. After another decade or so prices will probably crash as demand dries up. Why, you may ask? Well, many of the older owners will eventually downsize and sell as they get older and reach retirement. It's unlikely the younger generation will show much interest in these.
Many of these tapes were later added to a banned list and confiscated by the authorities before being destroyed. This makes them more attractive to collectors. You will see many on eBay with a high starting price and don't even sell. This is because their actual value is low and they don't want to risk selling if just for a few pounds. It only takes one very keen person to pay the starting price of say, £20. This is why the seller will just keep relisting it until someone is foolish enough to pay the asking price. Whilst some pre-cert VHS tapes are scarce, the vast majority are not. You may see a 'rare' VHS tape listed that sells for £100, only to be followed by several more hoping to cash in.
Higher values in recent years have been further compounded by articles such as this 'hype' from The Sun newspaper in 2018. The reason this particular video sold for so much was probably due to the fact that it was in an original Intervision plastic case. This was the second issue version. The first version came in a cardboard case.
This other example of the same video with Intervision plastic box sold for £69 on eBay in April 2023. Hard to believe that someone was willing to pay nearly £200 for the same video in 2018. £69 is perhaps a more accurate valuation. Less popular pre-cert VHS films may sell for just a few pounds. The most expensive collectable VHS pre-certs tend to be films that have become 'cult' classics or drew lots of bad publicity as a 'video nasty' in the early 1980's.
Also in April 2023 was this factory sealed Betabax version with a 'buy-it-now' price of £250. It was the Betamax version I watched when I saw it on video for the first time in the early 1980's. To me, it would be less appealing to own an example which I could never play. Either because I didn't want to remove the original plastic wrapping, or because I didn't have a Betamax video player to watch it on.
This next example was offered on eBay at the end of 2023 with a starting bid of £75. Unsually, this is is a complete intact box. Needless to say, despite being in good overall condition, no bids were made. I think it f it started at a low bid I don't think it would have sold for more than £60. Reference to DPP (Director of Public Prosecution) was included in the description to attract interest. The reality is that there are only a few 'DPP' related videos which will attract bids of hundreds of pounds from a small community of 'video nasty' enthusiasts. This is not one of them. However, it's a good example and would be of interest to enthusiasts of the film (with deep pockets), of which there is a 'cult following'.
Another example surfaced on eBay around the same time. Curiously, this one sold with a 'buy-it-now' price of £150. This example is probably one of the best I've seen. The carton has little, if not no damage and appears intact. It doesn't look like it's even been rented out. The description was very limited and no mention of playback quality. This is probably the reason other sellers are over-pricing their videos. As already mentioned, a serious collector with deep pockets is prepared to pay above the market value for a tape if it's in almost mint unused condition. The same goes for almost any field of collecting. Bear in mind there's plenty of film fans out there with deep pockets - who knows, maybe Simon Pegg bought this one.....
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| This example sold for an impressive £150 on eBay in December 2023 |
Just to demonstrate how much prices can fluctuate on eBay, this third example sold for only £26.31, which is a more accurate value. Overall condition was good and only the bottom lid missing. The seller provided enough good photographs to judge the overall condition - not something done by sellers asking much more.
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| This example sold for £26.31 on eBay in November 2023 |
Perhaps surprisingly, the video above was re-listed a few months later with a starting bid of £45.99. It could be that the buyer found another better example and decided to sell this one, or trying to flip it for a profit. Although it hardly seems worth doing that for just a £20 profit.
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| Re-listed on eBay February 2024 |
However, if condition of the box isn’t important to you and you’re more interested in watching the VHS then you can pay much less. Perhaps even less than £30, such as this example below which was listed on eBay in March 2024 with a sensible £10 starting bid. The tape itself looks to be in very good condition with original security seals still intact.
VHS Video Releases
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| 1. 1983 Intervision VHS cardboard sleeve fitted to a standard plastic box |
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| 2. Here's my Intervision video tape with complete cardboard sleeve (albeit with one vertical cut) |
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| 3. Another Intervision video tape and cardboard sleeve cut to fit the plastic case |
4. I also had this version in a replaced blue case.
The next three tapes below are very common and often listed on eBay with a value of about £10.
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| 1997 VHS release of Dawn of the Dead |
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| 1983 Thorn EMI US VHS release of Zombies Dawn of the Dead |
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| Dutch VHS release of Zombies Dawn of the Dead |
DVD Video Releases
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| DVD Directors Cut |
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| DVD including The Dead will Walk documentary |
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| 1999 DVD Anniversary edition |
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| DVD Ultimate Edition |
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| DVD Ultimate Edition |
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| DVD box set Trilogy of the Dead |
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| DVD Box Set Trilogy of the Dead |
I subscribed to Starburst magazine in the early 1980's and this had a few zombie related features. The best article on Dawn of the Dead was issue No.18 from February 1980. This was the review which grabbed my attention before I managed to see the film the following year in 1981.
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| Starburst No.18 - February 1980 |
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| Starburst review of Zombies Dawn of the Dead 1980 |
This edition featured an interview with George Romero in issue 48 of August 1982.
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| Starburst No.48 - August 1982 |
During the early 1980's I picked up a copy of 'Splatter Movies' by John McCarty (1979). This was one of the few early publications with photographs from Dawn of the Dead, albeit all black and white. This was a US import which I probably bought from one of the sci-fi shops like Forbidden Planet.
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| Splatter Movies by John McCarty |
Extracts from the Splatter Movies book
It's fair to say that George Romero's Dawn of the Dead has become a cult classic. I'm not surprised, even though it may not be everyone's 'cup of tea`. Subsequently, original posters and pre-cert VHS tapes are sold for significantly more than other less successful films of that time such as David Cronenburgs The Brood. I've only seen The Brood once, when I saw the double bill with Dawn back in 1981. Dawn certainly overshadowed The Brood, the latter of which I remember little and have not seen since. The Brood Intervision pre-cert VHS tapes can be found for £25 or less and original posters around £40. The equivalent Dawn pre-cert will be at least double and the posters many times more.
Simon Pegg is a well known fan of the film following release of his own brilliant version Shaun of the Dead in 2004. Even before that in 2001 Simon was seen sporting a Dawn of the Dead t-shirt in the excellent television series Spaced. In fact their fictional living room in Series 2 has a British Dawn of the Dead cinema poster on the wall. Not to mention a brief imaginary Zombie attack at the beginning of Series I Episode 3. I can't help thinking he shares the same enthusiasm for the film as I do, being of a similar age. We have some other things in common too but those similarities soon end as he became a famous actor, writer etc. etc. and I didn't come close. His biography is a an entertaining read by the way.
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| Spaced Series 2 Episode 1 - Back (2001) |
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| Simon Pegg loves Zombies Dawn of the Dead |
This was certainly the scariest horror film I'd seen up to that point. I loved the whole concept of survivors escaping to safety in a helicopter and barricading themselves into a shopping centre. It had plenty of guns and lots of gore. The special effects were some of the best around at that time. Tom Savini did an excellent job.
Although the acting from the non-professionals brought in by George Romero wasn't the best, the lead actors certainly did a convincing job.
The film was a relatively low budget independent affair which gave it a gritty edge and without the constraints imposed by big studios.
The opening sequence is great. Leading the viewer straight into the chaos and fear caused by a zombie pandemic without the need to explain what's happened beforehand.
At that time I was eagerly searching anything related to Dawn of the Dead in print. Since there was so few photos available I resorted to taking photographs from a television screen of a VHS rental tape on pause! About 10 years ago I threw these away following a house move. I've probably still got the negatives somewhere. I almost regret having a purge of my collection and selling everything, but hey you can't keep everything! I had to make some hard decisions between keeping what I wanted and what I needed - it was very hard!
It wasn't until I saw a DVD release that I noticed what kind of M16 assault rifles props were being used. They were .22LR M16 copies made by Armi Jager. These were known as the AP-74 and could be bought on the open market during the late 1970's and early 1980's. They were designed to fire live rounds but could just as easily be used with .22 blank rounds. The magazines held 14 .22 long cartridges. This can be seen in the scene at the office of the airfield when Ken Foree can be seen loading the magazine. The .22 magazine is much smaller than the real M16 5.56 version so it slides into a larger imitation.
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| A screenshot showing Ken Foree loading his prop gun - actually an Armi Jager M16 rifle with the smaller .22 magazine |
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| Brochure for the Armi Jager .22 M16 copy c. 1970's/80's |
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| Advertisement for the Armi Jager .22 M16 copy c. 1970's/80's |
Yes, the film has dated after all this time, especially with the Goblin soundtrack, but it certainly felt like a very modern horror film at the time. It was full of tension, drama and excitement with an ending that gave glimmer of hope for civilisation. A great story and a fitting finale.
Whilst I've been interested to see the Zombie concept evolve over the years, I still prefer George Romero's original slow, lumbering and menacing zombies. Giving survivors a strong chance of survival if maintaining a cautious approach. The modern take of super fast, strong zombies mean that you don't really stand a chance and that rather spoils the suspense.
Here's a few of my Youtube videos which are the opening credits for each release on VHS, DVD and BluRay.
Here's an extract from the British Board of Film Censorship website regarding censorship of the film. This provides a fascinating insight into the British censorship of the film.
Dawn Of The Dead was submitted to the BBFC for classification in June 1979 – seven months after the film was released unrated in the US. It is probably true to say that the film arrived at the Board with a certain amount of notoriety; two trailers had previously been submitted and both had suffered cuts. The film was seen by six examiners and the then Director of the BBFC, James Ferman.
The examiners unanimously disliked the film, whilst at the same time acknowledged that Romero had displayed some technical flair in creating pace and atmosphere. Much discussion was given over to the moral framework of the film – were the zombies sentient beings or unfeeling objects; was the violence mitigated by the fact that the zombies are no longer human beings; was the audience being invited to indulge in the killings because the zombies ostensibly felt nothing? One examiner felt so strongly that the film glorified violence that he excluded himself from any further screenings or discussions surrounding the work.
One thing that all the examiners and James Ferman agreed on was that the 125 minute submitted version would have to be cut before being released to the general public. Ferman stated that the film featured violence perpetrated against people which was “to a degree never before passed by the Board” and subsequently issued a cuts list that amounted to approximately 55 separate cuts (two minutes 17 seconds). These included images of zombie dismemberment, the machine gunning of a child zombie, a sword cutting open a zombie’s head and most infamously, a slow motion shot of a zombie’s head exploding.
The following month a cut version of the film was re-submitted for re-examination and this time another team of examiners viewed the film. All of the examiners still disliked the film and some were convinced that cutting was not the solution to alleviating the possible desensitising effect that the film might have on vulnerable audiences. Despite this view, the suggestion of further extensive cuts was made and the film was once again seen by James Ferman, who subsequently issued a further one minute 29 seconds of cuts to more scenes of gory detail. At this point the distributor (Target International Pictures) was worried that the film would not be ready in time to be screened at the London Film Festival, so James Ferman suggested that the BBFC’s in-house editor create a version that would be acceptable within the guidelines of the X certificate.
In September 1979 Ferman wrote to the distributor exclaiming that “a tour de force of virtuoso editing has transformed this potential reject from a disgusting and desensitising wallow in the ghoulish details of violence and horror to a strong, but more conventional action piece…The cutting is not only skilful, but creative, and I think it has actually improved a number of the sequences by making the audience notice the emotions of the characters and the horror of the situation instead of being deadened by blood and gore”.
When the work was first submitted for classification for video in 1989 it arrived in its post-BBFC censored version, now clocking in at 120 minutes 20 seconds. However, under the Video Recordings Act 1984 (VRA) , the film was to be subjected to another 12 seconds of cuts to scenes of zombie dismemberment and cannibalism. In 1997 Dawn Of The Dead was picked up by a new distributor (BMG) who took the decision to submit the film in its original uncensored state, with a running time of 139 minutes.
This time the BBFC only insisted on six seconds of cuts. However, it was in 2003 that the film was finally passed at 18 uncut by the BBFC, with the examiners feeling that under the 2000 BBFC Guidelines it was impossible to justify cutting the work – the film contained no material that was unprecedented and that it had in many ways been surpassed by more recent 18 rated horror films such as 28 Days Later and House Of 1,000 Corpses.
2004 saw the release of Zack Snyder’s remake of Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead, which proved to be an altogether more gruesome and graphic affair. However, the BBFC still passed the film 18 uncut.
Final thoughts
There's been an explosion of zombie related television and cinema in recent years, many of which I've not seen. The Walking Dead being one of the most popular. In fact there are too many to mention in just a short summary here.
Of course I saw the Dawn of the Dead 2004 remake in the cinema but it didn't make any impact on me and I've pretty much forgotten most of the scenes.
I decided to try Black September being shown on Netflix in 2023. I was actually impressed with this version. A good story, good charactisation and good acting make this very watchable. I also liked how the same scene is repeated, but from someone else's viewpoint.
The slight twist with these 'zombies' is that as well as being able to run, anyone who dies, even if not bitten, becomes a zombie. This makes for an even more terrifying ordeal when someone accidentally gets killed, for whatever reason. Ultimately, it's the humans which become their own worst enemy when it comes down to the fight for survival. Mind you, if you're a nasty person in normal existence, you'll probably stay the same in a zombie apocalypse. In fact that type of person may be more likely to survive if they only care about themselves.
Fortunately Black September doesn't have the survivor stupidity which you sometimes see in this genre. There's been just a few moments where someone forgot to lock a door behind them when it might have been a good idea. But then again, in reality when stressed and terrified, anyone can make a mistake. It seems a headshot puts an immediate stop to these zombies, but not everyone seems to realise that, or can't react in time.
Having seen how difficult it seems to be to stop these zombies, I think it may be asking too much to stop a 'horde' of any size.
Update: I managed to watch all of Season 2 and wasn't disapointed. We get to find out more about the people and their own struggles. Worth a watch!
Since I've strayed onto other similar films, I can't not mention Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002) which is attributed to kick starting a Zombie revival. Although his version is a virus creating crazed psychopaths, it's one of my favourites of the modern genre. I like the fact it's a British film filmed in the UK for a change. I'm pleased I managed to see it at the cinema when it was first released. Another DVD I wish I'd kept.
Wait, there's more.......
Here's my 'slideshow' video of a Dawn of the Dead cardboard carton restoration/preservation. It's not the best as it was too time consuming to try and video every stage so I only took photos as I went:
