the three act structure has been in use in cinema for decades because of its simplicity in storytelling. its typically used to track the protagonist's development up until a climax. the remake of Dawn of the Dead (holloween theme) employs this system although there is no clear protagonist but rather a group of lead characters. the introduction consists of having the audience in thrown into the action of the movie right from the get-go and proceeds in all its gory glory until the scene where Mahki Phifer's character's wife and unborn baby succumb to the zombification. this ends the first act since it tracked phifer's character for most of the film and many of the other characters come to startling realizations about their survival at this point. this occurs about an hour into the film. it is also about this time that the characters decide they can't stay put for long.
the next act consists of the groups preparation to leave the mall. the characters continue to develop and in some cases die. the complication includes the death of the groups neighbor andy as well as some good zombie kills. in this act the tension is increased for the audience as the group looses more people with closer calls for some of the main characters. by the end of this act when they finally leave and blow up a good amount of zombies with clean burning propane (king of the hill reference)/
the climax of this movie begins when the group finally leaves the mall for their zombie-free paradise. by this time the mall is almost completely overrun by the zombie hordes. more of the characters die along the way but day breaks for the cast and we think that through all this hardship they can start moving on with their lives. although the 3 act structure is supposed to help the protagonist deal with all the conflict of the narrative and typically end on a happy note, this movie ends with their island of salvation populated by zombies.
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