End of my 20s - Dawn of the Dead

Well, today is the last day of my 20s, so I've taken the day off work so that I can do a few things to celebrate. The first thing I did, at 10am, was watch the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead on DVD. This is my all-time favourite film, and I clock it at about the 40th viewing. It's by no means a perfect film; it has continuity errors, bad effects (like completely opaque blood) and has dated somewhat, but I love it to bits.

Part of its appeal to me is it's datedness. It was made in the end of 1977 and released in 1978, and it's obvious. And the scenes in the shopping mall take me back to 1978, when I was four, and I have clear memories of going around the shopping centre in Gloucester with my cousins when they were visiting us, and the decor was the same.

Another part of the appeal is due to when I first saw it properly. I'd caught a bit of it on video about 10 years ago, but paid it little attention. The case it was in was a dire, schlock-horror type thing, which did a good job of turning me off watching it, and I was a smidgen drunk. Still, I saw enough of it to keep the name and subject locked up in my brain. I first saw it properly in early 1997, when it was on late-night BBC2 in a slightly cut form. It sticks out because at the time I was beginning to suffer very badly from depression prior to moving house - something I haven't shaken off seven years on, sadly - and this film was the only thing that made me stop wallowing, stop shaking and stop crying. I think it must've envolved all the right circuits in my brain, or something. As a result, it has remained very special to me.

There's plenty of info on IMDB and Homepage of the Dead to explain the film in full. I'm not going to do that because I've got other things to do today, and I want some lunch before doing them. But consider it a recommendation.