Day of the Dead

As a zombie aficionado is it impossible to not have watched the Romero zombie movies, especially as they are such big milestones in the zombie genre. And also as they are the zombie movies that has the most heart put into it, no pun intended.

This 1985 movie, directed by George A. Romero, is the third of zombie movies in his lineage of zombie storytelling. And it continues with the usual bleak world overrun by the living dead. Society has collapsed and the world is in disarray, with small clusters of people struggling for survival. But it is not the threat of the living dead that proves the only danger is the new dying world.

Romero does a great job at telling the story he has in mind, and it is presented in a very enjoyable manner, which makes his movies quite entertaining and watchable.

The story in the 1985 movie "Day of the Dead" is about a group of soldiers and scientists who have barricaded themselves in an underground bunker facility. Here they try to survive the dying world around them. Some scientists are studying the living dead in order to understand more about them and to control them, a study which does not sit well with the armed military forces.

Granted that this movie is from 1985, so the special effects and zombie make-up is a bit outdated by today's standards. But it still works fine though, and the effects are still believable. But in the Romero movies it is not the special effects that drive the movie, it is the story and the characters; the special effects just help to progress the story and add a visual imagery to the dying world.

The acting in "Day of the Dead" was quite good, and there is a very memorable gallery of characters in the movie. And there was even a very memorable zombie known as Bub. And they had managed to cast some good talents to portray the various role and characters. I must admit that I was surprised to find out that special effects master Greg Nicotero was in the movie.

I assume that you are already familiar with this 1985 classic zombie movie if you are a fan of the zombie genre. If you are not, shame on you, then it is about due time that you get around to watching it. In fact, watch all the Romero zombie movies, as they are important to the zombie genre.

I have watched "Day of the Dead" several times, as I have with all of Romeros movies, and it can sustain multiple viewings, because the story is so well-written and executed on the screen.

"Day of the Dead" receives a seven out of ten stars from me. This is a good, wholesome zombie movie.

Our rewatching of the original Romero trilogy comes to an end with "Day of the Dead" which is perhaps the most unloved of the three but has some of the best gore moments of the series and a legendary jump scare at the beginning.

With the planet all but lost, a team of scientists and soldiers have formed an uneasy alliance in a large bunker in Florida. Tensions are high between them though, with the soldiers bearing the bulk of losses, trying to capture zombies for experimentation. The situation comes to a head though, when it becomes apparent that chief scientist, Dr Logan (Richard Liberty) is more interested in taming the threat, than eliminating it.

In so many ways, this is the best film of the original trilogy. The acting performances are better than any that have gone before. Lori Cardille in particular is excellent as Sarah, one of the scientists and the lead of the movie. Joseph Pilato, who has a tiny role in "Dawn" has a much bulkier one here, with Rhodes being the chief antagonist. Tom Savini's effects are the best we've seen, with some of the disembowelment that occurs towards the finale being the most striking and still very much holding up 35 years later. The character of 'Bub' is perhaps the most effecting of the entire series, though I do have to admit the idea of the zombies learning is an uncomfortable one and I'm glad that most don't explore that idea.

Plot wise, it could be better though. Initially starting with a big scope, and showing a Floridian town destroyed by the outbreak - it sinks back down into the only real storyline zombie films have, that of man's intolerance of each other ultimately causing our downfall. This might have something to do with the increasing cuts to the planned story, that budgetary restraints forced on Romero. It's the bleakest of the films, demonstrating not just that survival is unlikely, but perhaps even undeserved would this really happen.

That bleakness though speaks to me, and I do enjoy the film. "Dawn" is still my favourite; the score and the location alone see to that, but "Day" isn't that far behind.

While not quite up to the levels of Night or Dawn, Day Of The Dead still packs a story line that is just as relevant to day as it was in 1985, and boasts performances that are better than it should be. I really loved Lori Cardille here, and I'm surprised she didn't do much, much more than this.

It has one of the best openings in horror movie history (and Dr. Tongue is likely the most impressive zombie in any of these films), but it does drag just a little bit in the middle. The antagonists (of which there are more than one), aren't your typical mustache twirlers, and Romero gave them some depth and nuances that actually made most of their actions completely believable.

The climax more than makes up for the middle drag, and I love how Romero injected his undead with both horror and humor. A must for not only Romero fans, not only zombie fans, but horror fans in general.

In 1985 this zombie movie virtually went by unnoticed except for many Romero fans. It was virtually dead a week or two after it hit the theaters. Many attribute its failings to the other many horror films released that year including "Re-Animator", "Fright Night", and "Return of the Living Dead". All these movies were R though and day was not. Romero stuck to his guns and made a very gory movie. Unfortunately, when dawn was released there were still many independent theaters, but by 1985 the chains had taken over and one thing chains do is not show movies like this. So it went by unnoticed and those that did notice it usually had nothing good to say about it other than the zombies looked really good. So suffice to say, I wasn't expecting much when I bought this movie except the zombies would look good. However, I am happy to report that I was very pleasantly surprised. Granted, Dawn was still a better film as it had more likable characters than the ones featured in this film. This would be the final Dead film George Romero would do until Land of the Dead was released, but I do not count that one as part of his original trilogy as they seem to belong together because Night showed us the humble beginnings of the zombie outbreak, Dawn showed us the zombies beginning to overrun us and this film shows us a bleak world where the zombies now outnumber the living 400,000 to one.

The story has a group at the beginning flying a helicopter in the hopes of finding some survivors. All they find is the dead and quite frankly, any survivors out there would be better off keeping their mouth shut as they do not want to go back to the facility this group belongs to. It is like a bunker and in it we have scientists who have no clue what they are doing, army people in a rush to leave said facility even though there is no indication there are any people left, two civilian guys just doing their jobs and Bub the most awesome zombie ever! Tensions are running high in the facility as the army people want to leave and there is a lot of arguing; however, things take a turn for the even worse and the zombies that are topside begin to lick their lips!

This film has great looking zombies and it does a good job with its setting. Originally, George wanted to do something much larger in scope, but could not get the funding so he had to scale back immensely which is why we sadly on get the one shot topside in the city and get to see how much the zombies have taken over. Everything in this film is rather good, except the characters! Seriously, Bub who is a zombie is the most likable character and then civilian guys. Everyone else just wants to yell and rant and this film is not a good one to watch when you have a headache! The good news is that this creates a finale where you really want to see a few of these guys eaten and suffer, unlike Dawn where you just kind of get a random motorcycle gang out of nowhere.

So this film is good, just not as good as Dawn as this one just does not have the action of that film and for a good portion of the film the only thing you have to look forward too in between the shouting matches between the scientists and evil Bono are the Bub scenes. It does help build up the finale and like I said, you really want to watch these guys get eaten, but it also tends to get annoying as no one really seems right. That is just the way it goes though, mankind is pretty much lost here and so why worry about trying to cure something that cannot be cured when you can just try and live out your life the best you can.

Day of the Dead is George A. Romero's third Zombie film and it's by far my favorite. It has a lot of great social commentary on how we view the people with power and how corrupt that system can get. I enjoy the characters and the practical effects are absolutely amazing. Bub is probably my favorite Zombie in a movie because the character is pulled off so well. The entire movie has a lot of building tension that leads into one of the best third acts in any Zombie film. And just like with Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead I really can't find anything I dislike about this movie.

I'm giving George A. Romero's Day of the Dead a 9.8/10.