Day of the Dead (1985)
Director: George A. Romero
Starring: Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato
IMDB: 7.2
RT: 82
Box Office: $5 Million (Domestic)
Summary-
A small group of scientists and military personnel are living in an underground bunker during the zombie apocalypse. The scientists are working desperately to find a way to either cure the zombies or make them not want to eat humans. Their experiments begin to cross the line, further developing the tension between the military and the scientists.
Review-
Is it blasphemous to actually like this film better than Dawn of the Dead? While that film may have been a bit more action packed and featured more zombies I had more fun with this one!
The film opens with a group of people flying in a helicopter through Florida. They land in a town and try to see if they can find anyone but all they find are hordes of zombies. They return to their base and you can see that their are tons of the zombies beating at their fence. The group of people take an elevator down into an underground bunker. You immediately can feel the tension between the military and the scientists. I also liked the look of these zombies much more than in Dawn of the Dead.
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| Desolate streets of Florida |
There are 3 scientists that are working in this compound, Sarah who is essentially the main character of the film, a guy they call Frankenstein who does the more absurd experiments and another guy that I could not tell you what his name is. Sarah is attempting to eradicate the disease while Frankenstein is attempting to make the zombies more docile. Rhodes, the newly promoted leader of the military unit (their previous commander had just died) wants immediate results as he is tired of losing men in attempts to capture zombies to experiment on. There are essentially two factions that are operating in this bunker, the scientists and the helicopter pilots on one side and the military people on the other.The majority of the film revolves around the tensions between these two groups and there is a clear political message about anti-intellectualism. I can understand why people where initially disappointed in this film because it is more of a slow burning character study but I still found it fascinating. I especially liked the experiments on Bub the zombie. He actually has a very interesting character arc and also serves as part of the political message of the film.
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| Bub |
Now while some may find the 2nd act of the film depressing and boring (I don't) they can't argue that the third act is awesome! All of this tension between the military and scientists builds to a point where they are all going to kill each other. Unfortunately for them, Miguel who was Sarah's boyfriend has been on the verge of insanity for a while. When he is bitten and they chop off his arm to stop the infection from spreading and he finally loses it. He goes above ground and lets a bunch of zombies into the complex and everything goes to hell. The finale is awesome and brutal and has some phenomenal practical effects. I had been hooked all the way through and the final act sealed the deal in my love for this movie!
Final Thoughts-
I really enjoyed this film and it probably ranks as one of my favorite zombie films. It has that bleak, post-apocalyptic feel that I was looking for while having just enough comedy in it to keep you sane. It's not just a straight up horror movie though either as it does have a political statement which seems to be the case in all of Romero's zombie films. I'm the guy who always likes the less popular films in a franchise and i guess its no different here.
MY RATING-
4 out of 5
-Chris "Da Franchize" Hart
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