My Visit to the Dawn of the Dead Location Sites (Part II)

On my way home from the Scares That Care convention in Williamsburg, Virginia, I took a few days off to visit some of the locations associated with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. This post is the second part of the location sites from The Dawn of the Dead with accompanying shots from the movie. The Living Dead Museum will be included in the fourth post. You can see the photos from the Night of the Living Dead post here and the photos of Dawn of the Dead (Part I) here.

 

Monroeville Mall (Savini's biker gang attack)

Once our intrepid heroes close the mall and clean it out of the living dead, and deal with Roger who was bit during the securing of the facility, they settle down into a relatively normal lifestyle... until they're discovered by Tom Savini's biker gang who launch a raid on the building, This road by the southeast corner of the mall is the one used by the motorcycle gang as they descend on the mall. Notice the fire hydrant in the corner of each photograph.

The motorcycle gang descends on the southeast entrance, the same one that appeared in so many earlier scenes in the movie. [NOTE: The reason the gang used this entrance in the movie is because it was the only one in which the doors slid open to allow vehicles inside, allowing Savini's gang to "break in."]

The first location the gang arrives at is the water fountain, which was located at the opposite end of the mall and not by the southeast entrance. Since the filming of the movie, the fountain has been replaced by the play area and the escalator added.

One of the iconic scenes in the movie is when a zombie pulls Savini off the back of his motorcycle and Savini responds by cleaving his machete through its head. This is where that scene took place.

I found this fact fascinating and would not have known it if not for a store employee who told me about it. Naturalizer is the only store in the Monroeville Mall there during the filming that is still there today. It stands two doors down from the administration hall discussed in the last photo series. You can see Naturaluzer in the gunfight scenes between Peter and members of the biker gang. [NOTE: Of the 143 stores in the mall in 1978, thirteen refused to allow their store fronts to appear in the movie.]

This is the spot in the movie where Savini gets into the gun fight with Peter, who is hiding in the rafters and kills him.

In one of the more comical moments, the biker in a sombrero is taking his blood pressure when he's attacked by zombies, with particularly gory results. That scene was filmed under this escalator -- the same escalator that appeared in the first movie (see previous post).

Stephen meets his end when, after he is shot by the biker gang, he is trapped inside the elevator climbing to safety when the doors open and zombies bite him several times. When the elevator doors open a second time, Stephen has joined the ranks of the living dead. The elevator was removed when JC Penny was later closed and renovated. The elevator was originally located down this space where JC Penny used to stand and right near the theater (see my previous post).

Once Stephen is turned, his primordial memory leads him back to their quarters. The double doors to the left in the first photo are the ones closed off by the fake wall in the third photo.

The last set of photos will be published in the next day or two. They will be on the Living Dead Museum located in the mall.