Today marks the anniversary of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, released March 19, 2004. I went to a few of the locations while visiting Toronto in 2015.
The hospital is actually a library, located at 7755 Bayview Avenue in Thornhill, Ontario.
Ana’s neighborhood is in Caledon, Ontario.
Ana’s house is at 5 Garden Wood Avenue in Caledon, Ontario.
The neighbor’s house is at 10 Garden Wood Avenue.
She does drive around the actual block in the movie!
The park is located just north of the “hospital” and is at 7925 Bayview Avenue in Markham, Ontario. The swings were still there during my visit, but have since been replaced with a modern playground.
The tunnel is next to the park and connects to the Susannah McLaren Park at 121 Tamarack Drive in Thornhill, Ontario.
The street above them is Bayview Avenue.
Of course, the mall was CGI’d into this shot. The actual mall was demolished shortly after filming.
UPDATE: For an upcoming Horror’s Hallowed Grounds article, I decided to flesh out a few more locations that I wasn’t able to visit ten years ago.
As Ana flees her neighborhood, she drives south on 10300 block of Hurontario Street, just as a car drives out of a subdivision on Tremblay Street in Brampton, Ontario. Obviously I couldn’t recreate the overhead shot here, but included an aerial shot and old street-view shot that shows where the original white bar with green roof was located.
She then gets into an accident on Meadowvale Road at the Toronto Zoo exit. Thanks to Scott On Tape for braving a busy road to get these shots.
The actual Thornhill Square Shopping Center was not too far away, but was essentially cut in half shortly after filming. However, Andy’s Gun Works is over twenty miles away at 805 Wellington Street West in Toronto. Thanks to Sean Clark for this photo
As they escape the mall, they drive through an older industrial area of Toronto. In fact, you can clearly see one sign for Wolfe Iron & Metal with the address of 401 Front Street East. Much of this area has been redeveloped with just a few buildings still intact.
They make their final escape to the docks by the Balmy Beach Club at 10 Ashbridges Bay Park Road in Toronto. Special thanks to Sean Clark for these pictures and be sure to check out his great video on these locations on his YouTube channel.
