Dawn of the Dead: Director's Cut (1978)

Four uninfected survivors struggle not just to avoid being eaten but also to escape an encroaching fatalism in the face of overwhelming odds.
It's a small but diverse group, one half of which is military trained. The pairing of officers trained to kill and civilians is an interesting one; quite often even the ones who embody the most controlling aspect are written to serve the situations, whereas it would arguably have been more dramatically satisfying to have them presented in the opposite manner.
Night of the Living Dead (1968) is more indelible than Dawn of the Dead, but the sequel is just as capable of supporting subtextual theories. The focus got broader, pushing the undead threat into the light of day - or rather the unnatural light of a shopping mall. It's colourful, thought-provoking, gory and has more hit and miss humour than you might expect. B-Movie bumps and continuity errors aside, it's a worthy continuation of a genre-defining work.

4 insides on the wrong side out of 5

NOTE: Review is for Dir. Cut (139 mins) only. Theatrical (127 mins) and Argento (118 mins) cuts are paced differently and may score differently, too.