Trivia about Dawn of the Dead (Divimax Edition):

• Filmed in Monroeville Mall, Monroeville, PA.
• The airstrip used in the film, the Harold W. Brown Memorial Field (aka Monroeville Municipal Airport), is still in operation as of 2002. The privately run airfield is approximately 10 miles from the Monroeville Mall, where the bulk of the film was shot.
• The two zombie children who attack Peter in the airport chart house are played by Donna and Mike Savini, the real-life niece and nephew of Tom Savini.
• The voice of Christine Forrest (George Romero's wife) can be heard on a pre-recorded announcement in the mall ("Attention all shoppers...").
• The skating rink shown in the film was part of the Monroeville Mall. It has since been replaced by a food court.
• Much of the fake blood used in the blood packets was a mixture of food coloring, peanut butter and cane sugar syrup. assistant in the television studio. Roger with revolver.
• The weapons store featured in the film was never a part of the Monroeville Mall. George Romero shot those scenes in a gun shop in downtown Pittsburgh and edited the footage in to make it look like it was a shop in the mall.
• Filming at the Monroeville Mall took place during the winter of 1976-77, with a three week reprieve during the Christmas shopping season (during which other footage, e.g. the TV studio, was shot). Filming at the mall began around 10 p.m., shortly after the mall closed, and finished at 6 a.m. The mall didn't open until 9, but at 6 the Muzak came on and no one knew how to turn it off.
• Joe Pilato, who played Captain Rhodes in Day Of The Dead, appears as a policeman at the boat dock.
• Josef Pilato auditioned for the role of Stephen.
• The alarm company is named BIG BRUISER.
• Tom Savini, head of makeup effects, was unhappy with how the blood mix (produced by 3M) photographed; it looked fluorescent. Director Romero, George A. felt it was perfect for the film's "comic book" style. raid).
• Tom Savini chose a friend to play the "helicopter zombie" because he was notorious for having a low forehead.
• Dario Argento re-cut this film to fit the Italian audiences, taking out most of the humour, leaving in all the gore and titling in Zombi to make it more of a true Italian horror film. It was such a hit that it Italian horror master Lucio Fulci filmed a sequel, titled Zombi 2 (1979). It was released around the world as Zombie. At the same time, director George Romero filmed his own sequel Day of the Dead (1985), so, in a sense, there are two sequels to this film: an Italian version and an American version.
• Shooting at the mall was suspended over the Christmas season because it would have too costly to nightly remove and then later re-hang all the seasonal decorations
• Extras who appeared in this film were reportedly given in cash, a box lunch, and a "Dawn of the Dead" t-shirt.
• In order to save on production costs, director/editor George A. Romero had all the 35mm film stock developed into 16mm, and used that as his work reel. After choosing the scenes and takes he wanted, he had those alone developed into 35mm prints for the master reels.
• There is great dispute over the film's alternate ending, where Peter shoots himself in the head and Fran commits suicide by sticking her heads up into the blades of the copter. Some, such as makeup artists Tom Savini and Taso N. Stavrakis maintain that the scene was filmed, while director George Romero used to be adamant that it wasn't. However, in the documentary "Document of the Dead" by Roy Funkes that was filmed during the making of Dawn of the Dead (and is included on some DVD copies), George Romero clearly states to Roy Funkes, as they walk around the mall set, that they did indeed film the alternative ending, although he never filmed the effects shot. Gaylen Ross had had a head mold made for the effects scene, and Tom Savini did not want to see it go to waste, so he dressed the head up as a bearded African-American man, and that is the head that explodes from a shotgun blast at the beginning of the film. To create the exploding head effect, Tom Savini cleared the set and had the head shot at with an actual shotgun.
• With such a shoestring budget, the film couldn't afford professional stunt people outside of drivers, so makeup artist Tom Savini and assistant and friend Taso N. Stavrakis volunteered for the task. They are responsible for almost every stunt seen in the film, though not all went perfectly as planned. When filming a dive over the rail of the mall, Savini almost missed his pile of cardboard boxes, with his legs and back landing on the ground. He had to work from a golf cart for several days. The shot where Stavrakis swung down from a banner was poorly planned and he wound up continuing on and slamming into the ceiling.
• The narration for the USA radio and TV commercials for this film was provided by Adolph Caesar.
• The zombie with an odd fascination with Roger's M-16 rifle is Clayton Hill, who also worked as the film's weapons coordinator.
• While writing the script for "Night of the Living Dead", George A. Romero and John A. Russo contemplated how they should have the zombies destroyed. Co-star and makeup artist Marilyn Eastman joked that they could throw pies into their faces. This is undoubtedly the basis for the pie fight scene in "Dawn of the Dead".
• The MPAA had threatened to impose the "X" rating if George Romero didn't make cuts. Romero did not want to cut the film, and he was adamant against an "X" rating, due to its stigma of hard-core pornography. In the end, Romero was able to persuade his distributors to release the film with no rating, although on all advertising and trailers, there was a disclaimer that in effect read that while there was no explicit sex in the film, the movie was of such a violent nature that no one under 17 would be admitted.
• Some of the actors playing zombies in the movie would frequently get drunk at a late-night bar called the Brown Derby, which was in the Monroeville Mall. One night they stole a golf cart and crashed into a marble pillar, causing ,000 worth of damage.
• Zombie actors took photographs of themselves dressed up in full zombie makeup inside a photo booth on the second floor. They then replaced the sample pictures on the front of the booth with the ghoulish ones.