Films involving Amputees

Amputee: Minor Films no photo.

Title	Dawn of the Dead (1979)
Alternative/Original Title
Disability	Amputee
Country	USA
Length	126
Genre	Horror
Rating	4
Director	George A. Romero
Cast	David Emge Ken Foree Scott Reiniger Gaylen Ross
Notes	I love this film for reasons which are probably best left in my subconscious. The world (i.e... the USA) is threatened with being overrun by zombies. As the director, who also wrote the script, explains "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth". Initially we see an all out fight between some kind of troupers in blue uniforms against people barricaded in a house. It's like a SWAT team against the Black Panthers but by opening the wrong door they come upon the zombies. Two troupers then decide it's time to get out and they team up with two news reporters who have a helicopter. The action then moves to a shopping centre where it remains the rest of the film. The most part is taken up with their securing the centre against the zombies who are inside and trying to get in. This means a lot more gore and exploding heads since the head shot is the only way to 'kill' them. Even if you hate gore you'll love the shopping scenes where you can buy as cheaply as you browse. This idyll of an oasis is disturbed first when one the troupers is bitten and becomes a zombie himself. And soon after when a gang of motorcyclists descend on the centre. It simply doesn't matter to enthusiasts that the zombies' make-up is so apparent, that the blood is bright red, that this may have been shot on a year of Sundays when the shopping centre was closed. It doesn't matter that the four main actors have little charisma and so far as I know have never appeared in another main stream film. There's also humour, the deaths are as little disturbing as the practice shots at a mannequin and the plague or virus is never defined. At the very beginning the two troupers meet a black priest who is a right leg above the knee amputee. I can think only that this is a touch of irony since many of the zombies have lost body parts. The doctor on TV who is trying to convince people how serious the situation is has a patch over one eye which may be meant to imply that the one-eyed man is king in the kingdom of the blind. But that's probably too pretentious a reading.

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