Dawn of the Dead (1978) - 10/10
Two TV Station employees and two SWAT Team members take refuge in a shopping mall during the early stages of a zombie apocalypse.
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The Living Dead Weekend 2026:
This past weekend, Monroeville Mall held a 3-Day horror convention (June 12-14) with the stars of Dawn of the Dead. The event has been held annually since 2018, but this was to be the last. The Mall is tentatively set to be torn down in April 2027, and though there are rumors of a potential Living Dead Weekend in October, the word on the street is that it may be a Re-Animator (1985) reunion and not held at Monroeville Mall. This event was the Big Kahuna.
I had a Saturday pass and drove down from Michigan early Saturday morning, getting there at noon. I entered through the entrance prominently featured in the film (pictured above), which is located near Macy's. The Mall is different from what I envisioned. It's significantly longer than I thought, being a solid 10-minute walk to get from Macy's to JCPenney's at the other end, the general area where the event was being held. On the flip side, it's smaller in terms of scale; the second level isn't as toweringly high as it would appear in the film.
As you can imagine, things have changed a lot in the past 48 years. The fountains are gone, the Pennies/JCPenney has moved (the location in the film is now a Cinemark), there have been paint jobs, and so on. I kept trying to find the hallway that the characters spend so much time running back and forth through during the movie...only to realize I'd already been in it. I had to use the can after my 4+ hour drive, and the bathrooms were down that hall. Small confusions aside, you can still tell it's the same mall. The large marble pillars and a lot of the light fixtures are still there.
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Even though tickets were purchased back in April, many of the coolest events - the Tours of the Mall, the Cinemark movie screening with the cast, the VIP mixer with the cast - had long sold out. That left me with access to the panels, Halls A-B-C, and The Living Dead Museum (an extra $10). The panels were held on the mall floor, where the fountain would've been back in the day. Though I was always passing by them, I didn't sit through a full panel, so I don't have much to report there.
The Halls were your standard Comicon fare, with celebrities and vendors alike stationed behind picnic tables. Hall B, set up inside a closed Party City, featured the Big 3 - Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, and Gaylen Ross. As you would imagine, the lines to see them were always huge, often flowing into each other and even blocking the entrance of Hall B at times. In Hall A, the big name was Tom Savini. In Hall C (which was tiny), the draw was Land of the Dead's (2005) Eugene Clark. I didn't see any Day of the Dead (1985) alumni, outside of people who also worked on Dawn (i.e., Savini, Taso Stavrakis), but I could have missed them.
I had Tom Savini sign my cherished Dawn of the Dead (Director's Cut) VHS that I bought from K-Mart in the late 90s or early 00s. He's always been my favorite personality from the Dead franchise. A big part of that is that he was still in the zeitgeist when I was growing up, acting in movies like From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Planet Terror (2007), and Machete Kills (2013). I've met him twice before, but the most recent time was in 2009. Savini has...a reputation. He's not the celebrity to go see if you're expecting a once-in-a-lifetime interaction full of anecdotes and banter. That may upset fans anxious to meet their hero, but for me, it just adds to the bizarre mystique that is Tom Savini. Tom and I exchanged Hello's and Thank You's, and I'm happy my most cherished VHS tape has now been immortalized.
I didn't meet the Big 3 or any of the zombies. There was discussion about joining the Big 3's line to get their autographs, but the group concluded it wasn't worth the time or money investment. As you'd guess, prices were steep at this event. Savini was $50 per item, with no "buy one, get one" discounts. Even many of the zombies were charging $40 per signature. But if you're an autograph collector, this was the event to be at. Everyone who was still alive was at this event; from name actors to blink-and-you'll-miss-them zombies. There were some cast members who had never done a convention, like Jim Baffico (who played racist SWAT member Wooley) and wife Joey Baffico (who played a prominent zombie). It's my understanding that it was also a rare appearance by Richard France, who played the eye-patched Dr. Millard Raush.
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After wearing out the Halls, the next stop was the Living Dead Museum. Unlike the rest of Living Dead Weekend, this museum and gift shop is a permanent fixture at Monroeville Mall. Personally, it was the highlight of the trip. This museum features screen-used props and fixtures from Dawn of the Dead, including the original Pennies elevator.
The collection isn't limited to Dawn of the Dead, though. Props from some of the other Dead films (Night, Day, Land) are in the museum, along with other Romero films (The Crazies, Creepshow, Knightriders). Though the museum slants heavily towards George Romero films, sections of it were dedicated to non-Romero works, such as My Bloody Valentine (1981), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), and The Walking Dead (2010-2022). Most significant was the Evil Dead II (1987) room, which had the screen used workshed and cabin shutters.
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After The Living Dead Museum, that was pretty much all she wrote on the event. I'm not a huge autograph collector or photo op guy, and we'd already made the rounds checking out the vendors in Halls A-B-C at least three times each by that point. We even stopped in other mall stores, including Barnes & Noble for a coffee break, but staying any longer felt like it would've been redundant. At roughly 3 hours, our Living Dead Weekend came to an end.
To be honest, I feel like I left something on the table. I think the event would've been so much more enjoyable if we'd have been able to sign up for one of the 3-hour mall tours, but I had to make peace with that not happening months ago (or at least, I thought I did). The event itself was a little strange because the mall was still open to the general public, so there was an unusual mix of zombies and regular mall shoppers. It actually took us a few minutes to figure out where the event was, and we had to ask for directions. Adding to my mixed feelings, I bumped into a pair of YouTubers that I've been watching for nearly 20 years. Instead of saying a quick hello and thank you...I got cold feet, y'all.
Because the event was over so quickly, I considered driving back to Michigan and eating the cost of the hotel. I couldn't justify it though, and instead explored nearby Lawrenceville and later Pittsburgh (where the hotel was). Pittsburgh is a quiet and clean city, and we had dinner at a nice little strip called The Terminal, a stretch of 25-or-so shops and restaurants that was a 20-minute walk from the hotel. The cuisine of choice: Shake Shack. The night was concluded by drinking at the hotel bar.
I'm an idiot, though. It failed to occur to me that the extra time on our hands could have been used to check out the Evans City Cemetery, the site where the famous opening scene of Night of the Living Dead (1968) was filmed. The thought never even crossed my mind, as I was in full "Dawn" mode. Furthermore, the Creepshow (1982) house is in Monroeville, and the homeowners are totally into it, leaving a copy of the Creepshow comic in a trash can in front of their house for fans to do photo ops with.
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Recommendation and Conclusion:
Despite a few missteps on my end, it was a memorable weekend. This was the event to go to if you're a fan of Dawn of the Dead. The film is nearly 50 years old, so it's mindblowing that it can attract this level of attention all these years later. Though the Mall is in excellent shape structurally, time hasn't been kind to it. I'd estimate 2/5's of its stores are permanently closed, so it's easy to see why its days are numbered. Most of the film's stars are getting up there in age, and some aren't in great health. I was surprised to learn Tom Savini will turn 80 this year! This event was a great final way to say goodbye to the mall while most of the Dawn alumni are still with us. RIP David Emge and George Romero. (Also RIP to Tommy Lafitte, who plays Miguel the zombie early in the film - it's my understanding he was scheduled to appear, but passed away early last week).
Now that this event has ended, do I recommend going to the mall - on a normal day - before its destruction? Believe it or not, that was the original plan. Having some perspective now that I've been there: it's a tough sell, but not out of the question. You could check out the mall - most notably, The Living Dead museum (~30 minutes) - for an hour or so. You could milk the time further by eating lunch there. From there, venture out and explore the other landmarks, like the aforementioned Evans Cemetery and Creepshow house. There's also a mural of Tom Savini somewhere in the surrounding area, and my understanding is that the airfield featured in Dawn is very close to the mall. Close out the trip by visiting the Vinegar Syndrome store in Pittsburgh (they had a booth at this weekend's event), especially if you're into physical media. Between the Museum Gift Shop and the Vinegar Syndrome store, a very healthy chunk of the goodies available this weekend could still be purchased as souvenirs. As a 4-hour day trip, I think there's enough there if you put in the effort.
If you read all of that, thank you, and I hope you were at least multitasking by sitting on your porcelain throne. Stay scared!
