Theatre of the Dead #4 - Day of the Dead (1985)

Director: George A. Romero Stars: Lori Cardille, Joseph Pilato

Review:

In continuity of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead comes Day of the Dead, the third film in the series. In Night of the Living Dead we saw how the apocalyze begins, and in Dawn of the Dead we saw how people setting up resistance and try to survives. Now in Day of the Dead, the resistance failed. Everywhere is deserted and overrun with zombies.

We know this fact right from the beginning scene. A group of people flew over in a helicopter, and wanted to search for victims in the city down below. Nobody is on the street, newpaper which headlined the zombie incidence flying everywhere, a dried corpse eaten by inserts, money scattered around without any notice, and at last we see the zombies come out from the cry of the search for living human. This single scene bridges from Dawn of the Dead to Day of the Dead, in which zombies now rule the world and apparently the resistance have failed. This is a great scene in telling a story and also the best in the movie. It goes downhill from here.

The first zombie seen in the movie. Makeup is way improved from Dawn of the Dead.

A small group of scientists and military hid in a underground bunker in order to do research on zombie, in hope of solving the zombie apocalyze. Apparently the government ordered this research, and the military were given order to protect the science team. However the government went down in the incidence, and the main leader were killed. The military start to question what is the point of risking their life to protect the scientists that gives no result.

In the previous zombie films, the origin or cause of zombies are in mystics. We presume some magic or higher power that we could not comprehen caused the dead to walk once again. Day of the Dead maybe the first movie to bring science and military into the equation. The mad scientist, who is obsessed of why a decaying flesh would walk, found out zombies are motivated by only the brain. If we can seperate some parts of the brain, we could control their behaviour, and he thought that would be the solution to the zombie apocalyze. "I'll show them these creature can be domesticated even without the surgery."

Shot the brain and it's dead. What if just a brain, or even part of it? That is science.

In layman's term that means teaching them to play toys, like teaching a dog not biting its owner. I have the same reaction as the "villain" in the movie. What the fuck? We were all counting on you to make a device so that we could push a button and all zombies would just fell down, and you are telling me you can found out they can be taught to play toys? I personally would shot him on the spot, who's with me? 

"It's extraordinary isnt it!? Say hello to auntie Alicia" *Bang* *Bang* if I were there.

That is main problem with the movie. I agree with the supposedly bad guy, the military leader Captain Rhodes. The scientist provide nothing useful and the military man were risking their life to protect them? Later on we even discover that the mad scientist used the dead military guy on experiments, and their flesh as "rewards" to the zombies that behave. Who, if from the military, would not want to shot him. Hell I would even feed him to the zombies.

A zombie gets punished in the dark room. Wait. Zombies are afraid of the dark?

Another problem would be the mere concept that zombies can learn. Zombie are scary because 1) they are dead, 2) they want to eat you and last but majorly 3) they feel no fear. By letting them have emotions you are killing off the major scary factor. So then you can do things that they fear to keep them off and that is not hard. In this way they looks more like idiots then zombies.

An iconic scene from the movie.

The one that took the bite, as one would stated in the formular, did not actually died but open the lift to the surface and led of the zombies in, to sebotage the tyranny rule of Rhodes. It seems the lift is the own way to the surface since when he destroyed the button in LG, they did not find another way to reach the surface. Problem: how does the zombie infest the base so quickly? Once the lift lowered down, the military people ran all over the place and all they met were zombies. This leads to a natural conclusion the they all were killed by the zombies. Supposedly the scene in Dawn of the Dead the a human were ripped apart by the zombie were so popular that they make that scene several times in this movie.

It does not stand down in gore value.

I havent yet talk about the main characters because there are nothing worthy to talk about. Rhodes and the mad scientist steal the show for me. We see the men arguing, the collapsion of their mental states, but we have  already seen that in Night of the Living Dead didnt we?

Dont get me wrong this is still an entertaining movie and adding new elements shows Romero's effort to try to extend the whole idea instead of repeating it. After this one Romero took a long rest from zombie movies, and this movie completes the original trilogy of the Living Dead. Next time we would switch from Romero zombies, and watch how zombie movies advance in other people's hand.