Dawn of the Dead (2004): 10 Things You Didn’t Know
By Jeremy Dick
Image from Universal
4. The film is stuffed with various cameos.
Eagle eyed viewers love to find easter eggs in the movies they watch, and Dawn of the Dead provided several in the form of familiar names and faces. Director Zack Snyder must really seem to enjoy using cameos, as his was the very first in the movie— that of a government operative wearing shades and holding a machine gun in front of Washington D.C. in the opening credits montage.
A few faces from the original 1978 film can also be spotted. This, of course, includes Tom Savini, who provided the FX on Romero’s version as well as acted as the leader of the motorcycle gang. Savini’s cameo featured him as a cop on the news explaining how to kill the zombies (by shooting them in the head).
Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger, the two male protagonists in the 1978 film, are also playing different characters seen on the televised news. Foree’s cameo is particularly interesting, as he got to play a preacher attempting to make sense of what was happening. That’s when he got to say the classic line, “When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.”
Gaylen Ross, who played Fran in the original, never showed her face in the remake— but one of the clothing stores seen in the mall is called “Gaylen Ross”, so they still found a way to work her in.
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