‘Dawn of the Dead’ Star Ken Foree Campaigns to Save the Film’s Mall from the Wrecking Ball

Dan Clarendon
DAWN OF THE DEAD, 1978
Everett Collection

Like so many Dawn of the Dead characters, the Monroeville Mall seems doomed… unless actor Ken Foree and horror fans can save the shopping center, which served as a filming location for the 1978 film.

The 100-plus-store mall — located in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh — opened in 1969 and hosted generations of shoppers and several Hollywood productions. (A Flashdance scene was filmed at the mall’s ice rink, for example, and the comedy movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno and the TV show Mindhunter also feature scenes filmed at the mall.)

This January, however, Walmart purchased the 186 acres that the mall sits on for $34 million for the property, with plans to redevelop the site into “a new retail and commercial destination” with help from Cypress Equities. And those plans may involve the Monroeville Mall’s demolition, Cypress Equities CEO Chris Maguire told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Foree, who played Peter in Dawn of the Dead, said in an X post last week that he was “joining the outcry to preserve this shrine” to the legacy of the film, which earned $55 million, more than any other installment in the Night of the Living Dead film series, and was recently ranked by Paste as the eighth-best horror movie of all time.

“[Dawn of the Dead] was so popular that fans from all over visit ‘The Mall’ just to be where it all happened,” Foree wrote, in part. “For decades, the owners of ‘The Mall’ have graciously permitted zombie walks, conventions, and tours of its celebrated halls. … ‘Build it, and they will come’: Well, they have from every country to pay homage.”

Foree expressed hope that the mall would be designated a historical landmark, or that Walmart could at least allow a bust of Dawn of the Dead director George A. Romero and a museum on the site. (One of the current tenants of the Monroeville Mall is the Living Dead Museum & Gift Shop.)

An exhibit at the Living Dead Museum and Gift Shop, courtesy of Gabrielle Moss

Meanwhile, a supporter named Daniel Boger started a Change.org petition to ask Walmart and the National Trusts for Historic Preservation to save the Monroeville Mall, and so far, more than 6,000 people have added their signatures. “The Monroeville Mall is a place of cinematic history,” one signer wrote. “Its importance to the locals and fans of Romero cannot be understated. Preserve this site. Don’t turn it into another big box store.”

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Dawn of the Dead (1978)George A. Romero