Was Monroeville overrun the night before? And why weren't the mall doors closed?

[nycbsn]

In "Dawn", when they first land on the roof of the mall and begin observing the area, the parking lot is not as packed as it was during the truck sequence and there's barely any zombies inside the mall itself. By the time Roger and Peter begin switching the music on, it looks as if the mall is starting to fill up and they just reached the escalators.

This got me thinking, perhaps Monroeville (the town itself) got overrun the night before they landed there? Then again, something else to think about... why were the shopping mall doors open to begin with, thus allowing the dead to enter? You would think if it's time to go home or in the event of a national emergency, people would close up shop.

On a somewhat related note, speaking of the part when they're going up the escalators during the music, there happens to be what looks like a fresh corpse on the escalator who was shot in the head. However, the skin color is too normal to suggest that the person was a zombie. I wonder what the story is behind that dead body? Obviously somebody had mistaken the person for a zombie and opened fire. Maybe this person was an employee?

Man, these movies leave A LOT to the imagination. Thoughts?

[MoonSylver]

Perhaps the dead overran the mall before it could be completely secured. We have a zombie security guard in the generator room, who presumably shot the (zombie?) on the escalator before dying. The gates were all down, but the doors unlocked. So I could easily see a scenario where: outbreak begins, people flee, guard lowers the gates, goes to lock the doors, gets bit, flees back into the mall, shoots escalator zombie (perhaps the one who bit him, who then follows him into the mall), guard hides in generator room, dies & comes back.

The gates could have already been down too I suppose. Either it was early & only open to mall walkers, or was just getting ready to open & the main doors had been opened, but not the stores. But either way the scenario still plays out similar to the above.

I don't know if the amount of zombies in the mall is any kind of indicator of how long the mall had been overrun though, as zombies seemed to be wandering in AND out of the doors, if I rightly recall.

[nycbsn]

Perhaps the dead overran the mall before it could be completely secured. We have a zombie security guard in the generator room, who presumably shot the (zombie?) on the escalator before dying. The gates were all down, but the doors unlocked. So I could easily see a scenario where: outbreak begins, people flee, guard lowers the gates, goes to lock the doors, gets bit, flees back into the mall, shoots escalator zombie (perhaps the one who bit him, who then follows him into the mall), guard hides in generator room, dies & comes back.

The gates could have already been down too I suppose. Either it was early & only open to mall walkers, or was just getting ready to open & the main doors had been opened, but not the stores. But either way the scenario still plays out similar to the above.

I don't know if the amount of zombies in the mall is any kind of indicator of how long the mall had been overrun though, as zombies seemed to be wandering in AND out of the doors, if I rightly recall.

Actually, the mall didn't appear to be overrun when our heroes arrive on the roof. It was only the parking lot that was beginning to fill up (but it wasn't as packed as it would be later in the film), when they look in the windows of the mall, it's only a couple of them that are visible. Because of the lack of zombies inside the mall and the parking lot not appearing as packed, it seems as if the neighboring town of Monroeville was annihilated overnight just before Peter and co land on the roof.

Was the boiler room guy a security guard? I could have sworn he was wearing civilian clothes, I have to double check, I totally forgot about that guy. IF he is definitely a mall cop (lol), then I could easily see him being the reason as to why the main doors were opened, he probably fled town and planned to make his own locked sanctuary in the mall (just like Peter and co. did) but got attacked along the way and never got to re-lock the doors once he was in.

But either way, the one on the escalator did not have the signature blue/gray zombie makeup that all the other ones have, so I'm not so sure that person was a zombie before dying, I think he/she suffered a similar fate to Ben in "Night of the Living Dead". Maybe the mall cop was so panicky that he had an itchy trigger finger and shot anyone who moved.

[Trin]

There is definitely an interesting mystery here. All the stores were closed and locked up tight, all the displays were shut down, all the lights and fountains and music off... but the main mall doors were all unlocked. I don't believe it could be attributed to a lone mall cop fleeing to the mall to make it into a refuge. He would've opened one door at most. It's not likely that the mall was overrun while populated either. It would've been more chaotic in what was left open and what was not, and aside from a few destroyed zombies there weren't signs that a battle was fought there. The simple fact that the civil defense storehouse was untouched lends itself to the conclusion that the mall was just ... empty and overlooked.

It really looks like the stores and mall proper were closed down per routine mall activities. The guy in the boiler room may have been a maintenance guy or a night watchman. He was in a uniform. I don't recall if he was wearing a gun belt. Stephen picked up a gun and keys from the boiler room, but we don't know who left them there.

My money is on the mall being abandoned at or after closing time and the fleeing staff shutting down the important stuff and leaving the rest in a rush.

[sandrock74]

I had always assumed the body on the escalator was a zombie that simply fell and bashed its head on the escalator steps and inadvertently killed itself. Zombies aren't exactly known for their stability in the best of times...much less around moving stairways!

I figure similar to what Trin said. The mall was most likely closed like normal and staff sent home, hence the interior locked down stores. I think whomever was supposed to lock the exterior doors just got the willies and left with everyone else, saying, "Screw this! I'm not hanging around here alone." and he simply took off. Then the mall sat essentially forgotten about until we see it in the movie. Personally, I don't think it had been abandoned all that long, maybe a day or two at most.

[bassman]

Although not stated in the movie, aren't the main sections of some malls left open 24/7? I know my closest local mall only closes it's main lobbies for about an hour every night and that's so the maintenance guys can more easily clean/fix things. Other than that it's open all the time. Likely because of the theater that plays movies until about 6 AM.

They've mentioned several times in the Dawn features that elders would walk around the mall before it opened, so I always assumed the main portion of the mall stayed open and the stores just closed their gates.

[krakenslayer]

Although not stated in the movie, aren't the main sections of some malls left open 24/7? I know my closest local mall only closes it's main lobbies for about an hour every night and that's so the maintenance guys can more easily clean/fix things. Other than that it's open all the time. Likely because of the theater that plays movies until about 6 AM.

They've mentioned several times in the Dawn features that elders would walk around the mall before it opened, so I always assumed the main portion of the mall stayed open and the stores just closed their gates.

Yeah, I've worked in shops within shopping malls before and the opening and closing times of the mall itself isn't always the same as store opening and closing times. The hours of the mall are usually longer at both ends.

Also, the stores are opened and closed by the staff employed by that particular store, they would never be opened by the same people who opened the main doors of the building; the staff of the mall itself (security guys, janitors, etc.) have nothing to do with opening/closing individual shops.

In my time working in a mall, I experienced one semi "emergency" situation that bore out the situation found in Dawn. In response to extreme snowfall during one day, and the threat of public transport being called off later in the afternoon, potentially trapping people in work, most of the stores in the mall closed early and let their staff go home while the going was good. The mall building itself, however, remained open in spite of this; I'd imagine to avoid turning a minority of people out into the horrible conditions who had no means of getting home until later in the day. So the shops where locked and shuttered, and the concourse was open but mostly deserted, just like in the movie.

[Philly_SWAT]

When our intrepid group of 4 lands on the roof on the mall for the first time and look in, they can only see a portion of the top floor in the mall, and an even smaller portion of the bottom floor. They do not see many zombies. However, that does not mean that there isnt a shitload of zombies in there, just that they cant see them from their vantage point. Just like when they land the chopper in Ft Myers in Day, they see NO zombies, then all of a sudden you see that there was a ton of them, just not in eyesight. I dont think that the mall started to "fill up" when they hit the switches, all those zombies were already in the mall. The way it is edited, I took it that when hitting the switched on EVERYTHING, including the escalators, zombies heard the escalators and started getting on them and going up (not on purpose like they wanted up there, just mindlessly stepped on the now moving steps and went up). There were not many zombies on the second floor when they first arrived, but turning on the escalators inadvertently allowed them easier access up. "Hitting them all" proved to not be the wisest move.

The zombie in the boiler room definitely has on what looks to be a security uniform.

There are any number of reasons why the stores were locked and the outer doors werent. I could provide many theories as to why, but some have already been mentioned. Most likely it is as mentioned, that most malls have periods of time where the outer doors are left unlooked on purpose while the stores are all closed.

I agree that the number of zombies inside the mall doesnt say too much about "when Monroeville fell", more likely it wasnt perfect one day and then fallen the next, it slowly fell apart after three weeks, just like everywhere else.

The body on the escalator always bothered me as seeming out of place. I suspect that the REAL reason he was there and not having proper zombie makeup on was more a result of sloppy film making then anything else.

[shootemindehead]

Who's this "escalator zombie"?

[bassman]

^ A completely dead body lying on the escalator.

[AcesandEights]

Who's this "escalator zombie"?

It's about time I came clean, guys..I am "Escalator Zombie" (uncredited). I'll be selling signed merch all week.

[Philly_SWAT]

It's about time I came clean, guys..I am "Escalator Zombie" (uncredited). I'll be selling signed merch all week.
If so, then you should know you werent really a zombie, because you were lying there unmoving, which is what bothers me. It was not a mangled body, so if dead it should have arisen. If it was a fresh dead person, then the zombies should have been feasting on it. It looked like a normal dead, unmoving body then a zombie.

In a personal quest to at least always have at least one possible answer that makes sense (within the context of the movie) I suggest that perhaps there was a lone survivor in the mall, and when Flyboy was shooting around, but pure coincidence, one bullet left the boiler room and hit the survivor and killed him. Perhaps he was hiding in the ceiling right above the escalator. And if he had some rare blood disease when he was alive (which isnt out of the question, there is a very large medical complex in the Pitt. area) and the zombies could tell somehow and were ignoring the body.

[Christopher Jon]

The mall had probably closed for business the night before which is why the individual stores were locked up but whoever was responsible for locking the main doors had either fled or didn't live long enough (boiler room security guard zombie?) to lock them.

[JDP]

In "Dawn", when they first land on the roof of the mall and begin observing the area, the parking lot is not as packed as it was during the truck sequence and there's barely any zombies inside the mall itself. By the time Roger and Peter begin switching the music on, it looks as if the mall is starting to fill up and they just reached the escalators.

This got me thinking, perhaps Monroeville (the town itself) got overrun the night before they landed there? Then again, something else to think about... why were the shopping mall doors open to begin with, thus allowing the dead to enter? You would think if it's time to go home or in the event of a national emergency, people would close up shop.

On a somewhat related note, speaking of the part when they're going up the escalators during the music, there happens to be what looks like a fresh corpse on the escalator who was shot in the head. However, the skin color is too normal to suggest that the person was a zombie. I wonder what the story is behind that dead body? Obviously somebody had mistaken the person for a zombie and opened fire. Maybe this person was an employee?

Man, these movies leave A LOT to the imagination. Thoughts?

The shopping mall itself very likely had different hours than the stores, as others have pointed out. That could explain why it was open, while the stores were closed.

There were also at least two employees in the mall when the zombie disaster happened: the security guard and a janitor inside one of the stores (the one that attacks Roger.) So there was no absolute need for the mall to be locked down either.

The corpse on the escalator has to be a shot-down zombie, it's got a bullet-hole on its head, and the most obvious executioner must have been the security guard (later on we see that at least one gun is kept in the office at the boiler room, the general area where the zombified guard is also found roaming about.) If the body was a fresh corpse, like that of a looter who got shot by the security guard, obviously the zombies would have been feasting on it. But they don't touch it. Zombies don't eat zombies.

And just in case someone is wondering: The guard becoming a zombie is easy to understand. He seems to have been performing his duty of defending the mall from unwanted intruders (the shot-down zombie on the escalator seems to corroborate this), but in the process he got bitten or mortally wounded, and eventually became a zombie himself. What is not easy at all to explain is how in blazes did the janitor who was safely locked up inside the store become a zombie... Did he eat a batch of spoilt caviar and die???