Granted, I went to IMDb to check the rating of this 2020 movie as soon as I stumbled upon it. I hadn't even heard about the movie prior to getting the chance to watch it, and with its obscurity and low score, I must admit that I was not overly keen on the viewing. But still, it is a zombie movie, so of course I found the time to watch it. And I must confess the shameless cash in on the George A. Romero classic definitely was a selling point that also caught my attention. A mistake on my behalf, believe you me.
Or at least about 50 minutes of it and then I just gave up. This was, and pardon my French here, rubbish. Just utter rubbish. It is without a doubt among the top five of worst zombie features I have stumbled upon and sat through - more or less to the end.
The storyline in "The Day of the Living Dead" had the appeal as if it was written by a middle-schooler for a school test. It was just such a bad script that the story was halted, staggering and just unappealing. And it didn't help much that the characters in the movie had zero personality.
And while we are on the characters; the actors and actresses portraying the characters put on what could best be described as laughable and mediocre performances. Some of the performances and delivery of dialogue was just so atrociously bad that I was literally laughing.
The whole movie had a very wobbly low production and homemade movie feel to it. And that was definitely not what I was getting myself into. Hence, I just gave up on the movie out of sheer boredom.
The movie was shot in black and white, sure, that is something I can live with and something that could potentially work, given the movie was set to take place in 1957. But, and yeah there is a but here, every time there was some gore and zombie action on the screen, then the movie changed to color. No. Just no. It didn't work. You either go all out and keep the movie in black and white, or keep it in full color. Switching between the two didn't work in favor of the movie. In fact, it just cluttered up everything.
And with "The Day of the Living Dead" being a zombie movie, of course you need zombie make-up and prosthetics. They did have it here, thankfully, and the make-up wasn't actually as bad as the rest of the movie, so that counted for something. But adequate zombie make-up can only do so much to salvage a train wreck. Mind you, this wasn't spectacular zombie make-up, it was adequate.
The synopsis for "The Day of the Living Dead" brandishes this: "For fans who love The Walking Dead, THE DAY OF THE LIVING DEAD is another great zombie origin story." No. No. No. No! This is definitely not for fans of The Walking Dead. And no, it is not another great origin story. There is nothing great about this movie. Well, aside from the fact that something like this actually got funded and get to see the light of day.
If you enjoy the zombie genre, take heed and do yourself a favor, and stay well clear of "The Day of the Living Dead". It is not worth the time, effort or money.
