Original: Day of the Dead (1985)

Day of the Dead (1985)

Director: George A. Romero
Writer: George A. Romero
Genre: Drama/Horror/Sci-Fi/Thriller

Story

The third and final chapter to George A. Romero’s zombie trilogy takes a turn for the worse. The zombies have already taken over the world as far as the viewer is concerned and we find ourselves with a small group of scientists and military personnel trying to research the zombies and see if they can be “cured” or made human again. There is conflict between the soldiers and the scientists though as more and more of them are getting killed by the zombies and it seems that there is not going to be any cure found.


Everything Else

The directing of Day of the Dead follows suit with the last two films and again there was a long gap of time in between the last film and this one. None of the original characters appear in this one, but the time in which it takes place seems to be chronologically after Dawn of the Dead.


The biggest problem with Day of the Dead is probably the slow start and nonsensical flow of the film. It is unclear as to why these soldiers are here in the first place and who is actually giving them commands. Also, with the slow zombies and complete knowledge of how the zombies act it seems unlikely that as many people would get killed in this facility as do. They are simply careless and don’t take very many precautions. Then again, what would be the point if no one did get killed? It just doesn’t make any sense at this point and the last two at least had more of that going for them.


Thankfully, the killing is still there for the second half of the movie and once people start to die the killing gets more and more gory and horrific (thank you George A. Romero). The other addition to this film is the research that one of the crazy scientists is doing. He discovers that you can actually train the zombies and get them to remember a little bit about who they once were. This is the main element that adds to the series and without it, it does not seem like the movie would have had anywhere to go. The makeup for the zombies does not look much better than in Dawn of the Dead and the acting is still subpar. The goofy 80s music is quite entertaining though.


The Real Deal

I liked Night and Dawn a lot better, but Day actually had some interesting things in it to make it worth the watch. I would have liked for the film to start off with the killing a lot sooner on and the plot could have been a lot stronger. In the end I am left wanting more of Dawn of the Dead. It looks like George A. Romero was actually running out of ideas for the whole zombie thing at this point, but I believe he went on to make more zombie movies aside from this trilogy.

The Short Version

Raw Score: 691,323
Sharon Movie? No

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