Alexandra Lange
Architecture & design critic

Meeting Zombies by the fountain: George Romero's shopping mall

The Monroeville Mall, location for Dawn of the Dead, in 2001. © Brett McBean

A fresh excerpt from Meet Me by the Fountain on the undead shoppers of Dawn of the Dead, at Recessed Space.

Why do zombies go to the mall?

This question is asked and answered in George Romero’s 1978 cult classic Dawn of the Dead, the second part of a planned horror trilogy. Four survivors of a zombie attack steal a TV helicopter and head north, making for Canada. As they chopper over fields and roads, they find that the virus has spread past the bounds of the city. Every open space includes dark figures that stagger toward some undefined goal. Low on fuel and sleep, the escapees reach a vast, empty parking lot. “What the hell is it?” someone asks, as if encountering the ruin of an ancient civilization. “Looks like a shopping center, one of those big indoor malls” is the reply.

Although the mall was unrecognizable from the air, once they land the helicopter on the roof and get inside, they know what to do: shop. “It’s Christmastime down there, buddy,” both in the real world they have left behind and the refuge in which they now play. The empty J. C. Penney provides a television, a radio, lighter fluid, chocolate. They turn on the lights, the music, the fountains. A prerecorded announcement breaks into the Muzak: “Why pay more when the sales are popping here?” Why pay more indeed? In the zombie apocalypse, everything is free.