David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, and Gaylen Ross star as survivors of the outbreak who barricade themselves inside a suburban shopping mall amid mass hysteria.

The project came to the attention of Italian filmmaker Dario Argento who, along with his brother Claudio and producer Alfredo Cuomo, agreed to co-finance the film in exchange for its international distribution rights.

Argento's version features a progressive rock score composed and performed by his frequent collaborators Goblin, while Romero's cut primarily favors stock cues from the De Wolfe Music Library.

Despite facing difficulties with various national censorship boards – in the United States, it was released unrated to improve its commercial prospects after it was given an X by the Motion Picture Association of America, and in Britain it was liable for seizure during the 1980s "video nasties" moral panic – the film proved to be a major success at the box office, grossing $66 million worldwide against its estimated budget of $640,000.

While rural communities have natural barriers, such as Johnstown, and the National Guard have been effective in fighting the zombie hordes in open country, urban centers have descended into chaos.

At WGON-TV, a television studio in Philadelphia, traffic reporter Stephen Andrews and his pregnant girlfriend, producer Fran Parker, are planning to steal the station's helicopter to escape the city.

Across town, Philadelphia Police Department SWAT officer Roger DeMarco and his team raid a low-income housing project, whose mostly black and Latino tenants are defying the martial law of delivering their dead to the National Guard.

A nomadic biker gang sees the helicopter in flight and breaks into the mall, destroying the barriers and allowing hundreds of zombies back inside.

Despite having a fallback plan should the mall be attacked, Stephen, consumed by territorial rage, takes matters into his own hands by firing on the looters, beginning a protracted battle.

Later sequences depicting an emergency TV network feature Howard Smith as an unnamed commentator and recurring Romero collaborator Richard France as Dr. Millard Rausch, referred to in the credits as "Scientist".

Featured among the motorcycle raiders are Rudy Ricci as their leader, brothers and frequent Romero collaborators Tony and Pasquale Buba, and Taso N. Stavrakis.

Joseph Pilato, who would later be cast in Romero's Day of the Dead, plays the leader of group of police officers evacuating by boat, although most of his performance was cut from the theatrical release.

Longtime Romero collaborator John Amplas, who also served as the film's casting director, makes an uncredited appearance as one of the apartment tenants who engages in a gunfight with the police.

A fan of Night of the Living Dead and an early critical proponent of the film, Argento was eager to help the horror classic receive a sequel.

The truck yard scene was filmed at the B&P Motor Express Co. which is now a First Student school bus company in Irwin, PA, about 22 minutes from the Monroeville Mall.

Much of the lead-in to the two suicides remains in the film as Francine leans out of the helicopter upon seeing the zombies approach, and Peter puts a gun to his head, ready to shoot himself.

An additional scene, showing a zombie having the top of its head cut off by the helicopter blades (thus foreshadowing Francine's suicide) was included early in the film.

The head appliance made for Francine's suicide was instead used in the opening SWAT raid, made-up to resemble an African American male and blown apart by a shotgun blast.

Savini was an early opponent of the blood, produced by 3M, but Romero thought it added to the film, claiming it emphasised the comic book feel of the movie.

Dawn of the Dead has received a number of re-cuts and re-edits, due mostly to Argento's rights to edit the film for international foreign language release.

[35][36] On September 1, 1978, a 119-minute cut of the film created for non-English speaking countries premiered in Turin, Italy under the title Zombi, with Dario Argento in attendance.

The theatrical and Cannes cuts were restored from the original camera negative by Second Sight at Final Frame New York and London under the supervision and approval of Michael Gornick, the film's cinematographer.

The site's critical consensus reads: "One of the most compelling and entertaining zombie films ever, Dawn of the Dead perfectly blends pure horror and gore with social commentary on material society.

"[57] Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique praised the film, calling it a "broader" version of Night of the Living Dead,[52] and gave particular credit to the acting and themes explored: "the acting performances are uniformly strong; and the script develops its themes more explicitly, with obvious satirical jabs at modern consumer society, as epitomized by the indoor shopping mall where a small band of human survivors take shelter from the zombie plague sweeping the country."

He went on to say that Dawn of the Dead was a "savage (if tongue-in-cheek) attack on the foibles of modern society", showcasing explicit gore and horror and turning them into "a form of art".

Particularly displeased at the large amount of gore and graphic violence was The New York Times critic Janet Maslin, who claimed she walked out after the first fifteen minutes due to "a pet peeve about flesh-eating zombies who never stop snacking,"[59] and Gene Shalit of NBC's Today show dismissed it as "Yawn of the Living."

Others, particularly Variety, attacked the film's writing, suggesting that the violence and gore detract from any development of the characters, making them "uninteresting", resulting in a loss of impact.

Variety wrote: "Dawn pummels the viewer with a series of ever-more-grisly events — shootings, knifings, flesh tearings — that make Romero's special effects man, Tom Savini, the real "star" of the film—the actors are as woodenly uninteresting as the characters they play.

Vincent Canby of The New York Times dismissed it as "fake mayhem and not worth getting exercised about," adding: "Here is a picture that anyone can walk out of with head held high and a clear and untroubled conscience.

It stars Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, and Jake Weber with cameos from original cast members Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, and Tom Savini.