Trigger Warning: The following references suicide.

The Big Picture

Romero’s original ending for Dawn of the Dead was incredibly bleak, with a double protagonist suicide. Thankfully, others convinced him to film a more hopeful ending. The original script had Fran ending her life by driving her head into the helicopter blades, while Peter decided to stay behind and let the zombies feast on him. The filmed ending left the protagonists with some hope as they fought back against the zombies and escaped on the helicopter, ready to continue their uncertain journey.

In 1968, George A. Romero invented the modern zombie monsters we know with writer John Russo when they created the horror classic Night of the Living Dead. It’s a powerful film, but one with a very dark ending. Ten years later, Romero returned to his living dead world with 1978’s Dawn of the Dead. This film was bigger in scope, played in color instead of black and white, and took place inside the mammoth Monroeville Mall rather than a contained farmhouse. The societal messages were still there in all that flesh-eating, and just like in Night of the Living Dead, Romero imagined a depressing finale for Dawn of the Dead. The script was written, and the mayhem was planned out and built, but before it could become the official ending, Romero was stopped and begged by others to give his latest masterpiece a happier ending. In doing so, he created a film that can be watched over and over again for generations, rather than one that you take in once and never need to see again.

Dawn of the Dead During an escalating zombie epidemic, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter and his TV executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall. Release Date September 2, 1978 Director George A. Romero Cast David Emge , Ken Foree , Scott H. Reiniger , Gaylen Ross , David Crawford , David Early Writers George A. Romero

George A. Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’ Has One of Horror’s Saddest Endings
Night of the Living Dead is important to horror for many reasons. Part of that, of course, is that it is history, as this is the first movie where zombies were not some Voodoo creation but the rotting dead coming back to life with the insatiable craving for human flesh. There is also the political message found in the casting of the lead hero, Ben (Duane Jones), a Black man who takes charge while all the white people around him freak out. Romero says he didn’t mean to, that he simply cast Jones because he was the best actor, but there is a visible political message about 1960s civil rights to be found.

That is especially found in the latter moments of Night of the Living Dead. The final act has every character killed except for Ben. He manages to survive by locking himself down in the farmhouse basement, only coming out in the morning when he hears a rescue group nearby shooting the last of the remaining zombies. When Ben walks to a window, one of the party mistakes him for a zombie and shoots him in the head. The final stomach-churning images show Ben’s body being placed on a bonfire by a group of white men. It harkened back to visceral images of lynchings. Even if Romero did it accidentally, a lot is being said in one of horror’s most heartbreaking finales.

‘Dawn of the Dead’s Original Ending Was Going To Be Incredibly Bleak

Ten years later, in 1978, for Dawn of the Dead, Romero cast another strong Black man as one of his heroes, with Ken Foree playing Peter, a SWAT team officer. This time, however, his white friends work with him, rather than hinder him. Here, Peter just happens to be Black. There is no message in his race. Instead, the message is about consumerism. Our protagonists, who also include another SWAT officer, Roger (Scott Reiniger), helicopter pilot Stephen “Flyboy” Andrews (David Emgee), and his girlfriend Francine (Gaylen Ross), take shelter in an abandoned shopping mall taken over by the living dead. With shopping malls becoming more popular in the late 70s, the message is clear: we are the zombies because of how our shopping habits guide our lives.

Dawn of the Dead is a more fun film than Night of the Living Dead because our protagonists get along. They are friends working together rather than fighting apart. That makes their deaths matter more because we’ve come to care about these people. When Roger is bitten by a zombie and dies, it’s painful to witness. When Stephen is bitten and turns at the end, becoming a living dead in one of the greatest zombie portrayals ever, it’s heartbreaking because he almost made it. Then comes that ending where Romero originally decided that no one was going to make it out alive, Peter and Fran included.

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In the original script, a zombified Flyboy leads the other members of the undead back to the humans’ mall hideout. With Peter and Fran discovered, they must flee to the roof where the helicopter waits. At the last moment, Peter decides he’s not going to go with Fran. He has given up, so he sends her to the roof while he stays behind. In the helicopter, Fran hears Peter shoot himself. It’s then, with her now alone, that Fran gives up. The original script ends with: Fran steps out onto the running board; the creatures very close now. She crouches, watching for a moment, then looks up at the spinning blades. She stands straight up, driving her head into the spinning blades. A headless form falls to the roof. The Zombies advance. In a wide shot, silhouetted against the dawn sky, we see the creatures huddled under the chopper blades, feasting on their last victim.

The Filmed ‘Dawn of the Dead’ Ending Is More Hopeful

Talk about a depressing ending! Night of the Living Dead was hard enough to take, but at least Ben wasn’t a quitter. George Romero decided Dawn of the Dead would go out with a double protagonist suicide. It was too much, and thankfully, Christine Forrest, a producer and assistant director on the film (her name would change to Christine Romero when she later became George’s wife for thirty years), decided she had to talk Romero out of his planned bleak finale.

In a 2004 documentary, The Dead Will Walk, about the making of Dawn of the Dead, Ken Foree, Gaylen Ross, Christine Forrest, George Romero, and practical effects creator Tom Savini talked about the original ending. Ross spoke of her original helicopter decapitation death, saying, “That was, I thought, a particularly strong ending. At the same time, I could understand why they thought that would be too difficult.” Christine Forrest kept telling her future husband repeatedly that he couldn’t go forward with his original ending. He finally relented and instead filmed an ending that isn’t exactly happy but does leave our protagonists and the viewer with some hope. Everything happens the same way until Peter puts the gun to his head. As the zombies approach, he’s unable to kill himself. He decides to fight back and makes it to the roof where Fran is still waiting. They lift up in the air together as the sun rises behind them, not knowing what’s next, but ready to continue.

Tom Savini spoke of Romero’s decision to have an uplifting ending because these characters have gone through so much. “Let them get away!” he laughed. Ken Foree agreed. “I think there had to be some kind of uplifting ending.” George Romero smiled and offered, “I love that swell of the strings when they fly away in the end. How can you live without that, man?”

Was the Original ‘Ending to Dawn of the Dead’ Actually Shot?
Image via United Film Distribution Company

Even though George Romero decided not to go with the scripted original ending for the final cut of Dawn of the Dead, were the hopeless final moments filmed? Interestingly, Romero and Tom Savini and themselves can’t seem to remember. In The Dead Will Walk, Savini said, “We never shot Ken shooting himself, we never shot her head disintegrating.” Despite this, in a commentary track for Dawn of the Dead with Romero and Savini, even though the director and Christine Forrest said they had no memory of shooting the alternate ending, Savini contradicted himself. He remembered in detail how they had Fran’s body hanging from a wooden tripod over the helicopter. The blades weren’t going, but they exploded her head and then cut fishing lines to drop her body. Savini said he has no memory of shooting Peter’s death, which means that probably never happened.

Whether Fran’s messy exit from the film was ever shot or not doesn’t matter except for grim curiosity. George Romero’s decision not to go with that original ending was the right choice. If he hadn’t listened to the disagreements of his soon-to-be wife, and the agreements to that by those involved in the making of the film, Dawn of the Dead would be looked at quite differently. Though it’s a scary movie, it’s always been seen as a fun and humorous one well worthy of countless rewatches. Keep in that suicidal ending, however, and you have a movie that, while still great and effective, is something so dark you never want to revisit it.

Dawn of the Dead is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

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