Dawn of the Dead (1978) Poster

Parents Guide

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Certification

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Certification

Sex & Nudity

  • A man and woman are seen in bed together, she's topless with her breasts seen in dim lighting. The dim lighting makes it hard to actually make anything out, so you don't really see any nudity.
  • A man and a woman with her breasts exposed lay in bed together and sex is implied, however they aren't doing anything onscreen.

Violence & Gore

  • There is a shootout sequence at the beginning of the film. Several people and zombies are shot with bullet holes and blown apart wounds, with lots of blood splatter. One man's head is completely blown apart with a shotgun, with chunks of it seen flying briefly.
  • A zombie accidentally walks into a helicopter wing, which slices his head open. Blood is seen oozing everywhere from a distance.
  • The film features gory carnage throughout. The camera does not always linger on the details for very long but it sometimes does. In one scene we see someone graphically torn apart and eaten alive by zombies. They rip open his stomach and chew on his guts and tear him apart limb by limb and we see all of them feasting on his insides and body parts. This scene is EXTREMELY graphic and shown for a very long time. By far the worst part in the film.
  • Zombies are shown attacking victims, biting (in close-up), tearing flesh and disemboweling their live prey. The creatures can only be killed by decapitation or destruction of the brain, so the characters are forced to defend themselves with firearms and bladed weapons, inflicting bloody bullet wounds, decapitations, dismemberment, gruesome blunt-force trauma and vehicular homicide on their undead attackers. Most of the killings are gory and detailed, but shown only briefly. There are many, many, many zombie killings. It should also be noted that the human-on-zombie violence is largely "kill or be killed".
  • Blood splatters in tremendous amounts for both humans and zombies.

Profanity

  • 3 uses of f**k, 1 use of b**tard, 1 use of What the H**l, 3 uses of son of a b***h, 1 use of N***er, and 4 uses of s**t.
  • 8 uses of fuck in the directors cut.
  • Some strong language is used, albeit fairly infrequently. There are 4 uses of the word 'fuck' and its derivatives, as well as some of the common scatological and anatomical swear-words. One racial slur ('chocolate man') is directed at a main character.

Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking

  • Characters are seen smoking and drinking throughout. A minor character is shown desperately looking for a cigarette. A man drinks alcohol to numb the pain of an injury, and is later given morphine to cope with the agony. No drug abuse. A character drinks to a dead friend.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • Scenes of 'cannibalism', the constant threat of the hungry zombies clawing and struggling to reach the characters, and the transformation of sympathetic characters into bloodthirsty ghouls will all likely be disturbing to children and those of a sensitive disposition. Many adult viewers, even those with strong stomachs, will likely be shocked by the visual images of extremely gruesome horror present in the film.
  • The film's handling of the concept of "zombies" is also frightening in itself; they are "us" technically, except they also like to eat us.
  • Some upsetting deaths.

Spoilers

The Parents Guide items below may give away important plot points.

Violence & Gore

  • A main character is shot twice and attacked by zombies offscreen, he is later shown as a mangled zombie that is shot.
  • A character slowly becomes a zombie over the course of the film, he is eventually shot in the head
  • A man has his arm ripped off, blood sprays everywhere.
  • There is also some considerable human-on-human violence: Several gang members are gunned down by police. An innocent man is decapitated by a shotgun blast. A character is shot in the arm in closeup bloody detail. Characters are picked off with a sniper rifle.

See also

Taglines | Plot Summary | Synopsis | Plot Keywords


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