Description
The United States is devastated by a mysterious phenomenon that reanimates recently-deceased human beings as flesh-eating zombies. Three weeks into the crisis, it has been reported that millions of people have died and reanimated; despite the government's best efforts, social order is collapsing. Rural communities and the National Guard have been effective in fighting the zombie hordes in open country, but urban centers are helplessly overrun.
At WGON TV, a television studio in Philadelphia, traffic reporter Stephen Andrews and his pregnant girlfriend, producer Fran Parker, are planning to steal the station's helicopter to escape the city. Across town, police SWAT officer Roger DeMarco and his team raid a low-income housing project, where the mostly black and Latino tenants are defying the martial law of delivering their dead to the National Guard. The raid quickly descends into chaos when armed residents engage in a shootout with the officers. Roger attempts to restrain Wooley, a brutal and racist trooper, after he maniacally kills several unarmed civilians; Wooley is shot dead by an officer from another unit, Peter Washington. As the SWAT team dispatch the reanimated dead that have injured or killed several tenants, a young officer commits suicide amid the carnage. Forming an alliance with Peter, Roger suggests that they desert and join up with Stephen, who is his friend. They are informed by an elderly priest of a group of zombies in the basement, which they assist in the grim job of eliminating.
Later that night, Roger and Peter rendezvous with Fran and Stephen at a police dock and then leave Philadelphia in the helicopter. Following some close calls while stopping for fuel, the group comes across a shopping mall, which they make as their sanctuary. They devise an operation to block the mall entrances with trucks to keep the undead from penetrating. Peter and Stephen also cover the access to the stairwell. During the operation, Roger has a near-death experience and becomes reckless as a result. He is soon bitten by the zombies.
After clearing the interior of zombies, the four enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle with all the goods available to them, furnishing their makeshift apartment with the mall's many commodities. Roger eventually succumbs to his wounds and dies; he is shot by Peter upon reanimating. Sometime later, all emergency broadcast transmissions cease, suggesting that the government has collapsed and a large portion of the population has become zombies. Fran, now showing her pregnancy, presses to leave the mall. Supplies are loaded into the helicopter, and Stephen gives her flying lessons.
Having seen the helicopter, a nomadic biker gang arrive to conquer the mall, destroying the barriers and allowing hundreds of zombies back inside. The looting bikers enrage Stephen, and he triggers a gun battle with them. Stephen is shot before being bitten by the undead. As some of the bikers are eaten by zombies, the rest retreat with their stolen goods. Stephen, now reanimated, acts on a remnant of his memories and tears down the wall covering the stairwell and leads the undead to Fran and Peter. Peter kills Stephen while Francine escapes to the roof. Peter locks himself in a room and contemplates suicide, but when the zombies burst in, he has a change of heart and fights his way up to the roof, where he joins Francine. The two then fly away in the helicopter to an uncertain future, leaving the now-abandoned mall to be overrun by the zombie horde.
