Day of the Dead (1985)
George Romero
"That's right, Bub! Say hello to your Aunt Alicia! Say, 'Hello Aunt Alicia.'"
A couple days ago, we took a close look at George Romero's masterpiece Dawn of the Dead. It's one of my favorite movies of all time, despite it's amateurish quality (actually, it's probably more accurate to say that I love it BECAUSE of the low-budget independent spirit that went into making it). Today Emily and I watched the sequel, which Romero called his favorite of the trilogy. It's my least favorite of the three, but I still absolutely love it!
Much of the mainstream critical analysis of Romero's trilogy categorizes the three films into statements about their respective decades: Night of the Living Dead has the racial undertones of the 1960's, and Dawn of the Dead features a criticism of the consumerism of the 70's. Most contemporary reviews I've read of Day of the Dead call it a warning about the unchecked militarism that was rampant in the 80's. While that's certainly an element of Day of the Dead, I think the message is broader and far more subtle.
Listening to old Romero interviews, he always waved away the notion that he was attempting to make a big statement with any of his zombie films. He repeatedly said that the only reason he hired Duane Jones (an African American) to play the lead in Night was because Jones was the best actor who auditioned. Romero claimed that the only reason he set Dawn in a shopping mall was because he thought an indoor shopping mall would be a good place to survive a zombie apocalypse. Now whether or not he was consciously trying to make a statement with each film is immaterial; the important social lessons are clear as a bell in each one, mainly because of the understanding of the social zeitgeist that Romero had.
For this film, Romero finally had the backing of a major distribution studio and was offered a $7 million budget, five times what he had to work with on Dawn. Romero set out to make the "Gone With the Wind" of zombie movies, and turned in a huge script which was summarily nixed by the studio executives for being too ambitious and violent. Romero gave in on the ambitiousness, but would not back down on the gore, insisting that the film remain unrated. The studio knocked the offered budget in half and Romero had to condense a lot of what he wanted to do.
This has been a theme in George Romero's career. Remember when they made that terrible Resident Evil movie in 2002? Romero wrote the original script and was slated to be the film's director after he made a super cool TV ad for the video game for Japan. His original script involved, among other things, zombie dogs tearing into a horse that gallops away as its entrails spill out. The studio took one look at it, threw it into a fire, and hired some hack fraud to do exactly what the executives wanted. The series has now grossed well over a billion dollars internationally, and proves that nothing matters more in Hollywood than money (except maybe covering up rape).
But back to a happier thought: the complete collapse of civilization...
There are a few things that I like about Day over Night or Dawn, despite it being my third favorite overall. The first is the lead female character, Sarah. The acting takes a step forward with Lori Cardille (nothing against either Gaylen Ross or Judith O'Dea, but Cardille is on another level), and she's portrayed from the start as strong, intelligent, level-headed, and motivated to do good. She's the fulcrum for the plot, existing between the two distinct camps in the bunker. She's a scientist in the bunker, but she tries to make peace with the overbearing military leadership, attempts to motivate the checked-out mechanic and helicopter pilot, and extolls the bunker's lead scientist to be more transparent with his research. There's a clear sense throughout the film that if the world were made up of Sarahs, humanity would sort the zombie problem out eventually.
I've read an interview with Cardille where she stated that at times she'd attempt to improvise a more emotional reaction to things (you know, like having to cut off her boyfriend's arm after he'd been bitten) but Romero would stop her, and reshoot the scene. He wanted Sarah to be a paragon of cool logic and strength, not hyper emotional like the military commander, or disconnected from reality like the lead scientist. It's a great choice, and her character's arc from motivated professional to "ok, let's give up and live on an island somewhere" is a good microcosm of the the arc in the trilogy. Humanity had its chance, blew it, continued to blow it repeatedly, and couldn't even manage to hide underground successfully. May as well throw in the towel and turn the world over to the zombies...
I'm also a big fan of what Romero did with the scientist character, Logan (or Frankenstein, if you're so inclined):
I particularly love all the empty chairs in this scene. Clearly, our ragtag team of living humans is not doing so hot...
Yes, one of the major themes in the film involves oppressive, fascist style militarization, but that's hardly the only criticism Romero highlights. The disorganization in the application of science, unchecked by ethical considerations or even basic human decency, is just as culpable for the decay of order within the bunker. Rhodes plays an excellent foil (mainly because Joe Piloto owns the role) but as we learn more about Logan's experiments, we realize he's lost it completely. He's feeding his pet zombie, Bub, freshly dead soldiers, he's secretly using the recently deceased military commander's brain for experiments, and he's not showing any results to the guys with all the guns.
But he does serve a purpose. His training protocol with Bub demonstrates conclusively that the zombies aren't totally mindless, but operate on instinct. For whatever reason, their new base instinct is to feed upon living human flesh, but they still retain knowledge of their previous lives. In Bub's case, he salutes a soldier, aims a gun, and uses a phone to talk to his Aunt Alicia (my favorite scene in the whole movie):
Romero is demonstrating that if zombies can learn, they're going to be the new dominant species on earth (it helps that they outnumber living humans 400,000 to 1). There are lots of animals that get by on instinct alone, and do just fine. Sure zombies can't reproduce (at least not in a typical manner) but they also don't NEED to eat, nor do they die off without being killed by an external force. This is something Romero explores in more depth in Land of the Dead, but it's kind of a bad movie, so it doesn't resonate.
With this conceit in mind, his treatment of the two "checked out" characters in the film, John and McDermott, makes a lot more sense. From the start of the film, they're reluctant to land the helicopter to look for human survivors, and try not to get involved with the politics of the bunker. They're also the two most indispensable members of the survivors, as John is the only one who can fly the helicopter, and McDermott is the only one who can fix it if it breaks. This means that they enjoy certain luxuries that the others don't. Romero makes their home the most comforting place in this bleak and claustrophobic film. They listen to music, drink heavily, and have a faux backyard for relaxing.
You can also hear Romero's voice come through them. John waxes at length about the futility of trying to preserve humanity's past, and suggests repeatedly that he, Sarah, and McDermott take off in the helicopter and try and enjoy what time they have left. They're painted as the most likable and sensible of the bunch (unless you're a Type A go-getter like Sarah), and give the audience peopole to root for (besides the zombies, of course). They're also the only ones who get their way by the end of the film, giving us easily the "happiest" ending in the trilogy:
The Reagan era sucked, and all sensible people saw the zombie hordes bearing down. They either worked hard (albeit futilely) to change things, or checked out of a broken system. Romero was a blue collar guy from Pittsburgh, and saw what happened to industrial towns after corporations moved jobs to other countries with help from government officials. A system constructed on greed and individual achievement above all else would crumble to dust under the weight of something like the dead rising from their graves. Each film is a study of how we'll invariably fuck up preventing armageddon.
Before I finish up with this review, I want to mention a couple of other things that I feel are particularly great about Day of the Dead: the special effects and the music.
It's amazing what Tom Savini can do with a budget:
He still uses discarded butcher offal for human viscera, but the effects are on a totally different level from Dawn of the Dead. And the zombies look amazing. Gone is the once-over with some blue paint and a dash of fake blood. Here we have truly gruesome shambling corpses in various states of decomposition. Each one looks distinct, and there's some solid belly laughs in the characters that pass by the camera. I'm a huge fan of the marching band zombie in particular.
I also appreciate the synth driven 80's soundtrack of Day. I miss the Italian prog rock stylings of Goblin, but working-man composer John Harrison put together something pretty special. The opening track is really good, and you can hear it heavily sampled in the Gorillaz song M1A1:
I'm such a shameless Dead trilogy nerd that this sample is what convinced me that Gorillaz knew what they were doing. I've liked them ever since.
It might not be as memorable as Dawn of the Dead's perfect musical accompaniment, but it's one of the best horror soundtracks of the 1980's, and ranks up there with some of the more famous stuff John Carpenter created around the same time.
Summary:
While it's not my favorite of the Dead trilogy, it's still a great horror movie and a classic in its own right. If you hate the 1980's and Morning in America as much as George Romero did (and who wouldn't?), you'll find something to love about Day of the Dead. It's not streaming anywhere, but the Blu Ray is on Amazon for pretty cheap!
A couple days ago, we took a close look at George Romero's masterpiece Dawn of the Dead. It's one of my favorite movies of all time, despite it's amateurish quality (actually, it's probably more accurate to say that I love it BECAUSE of the low-budget independent spirit that went into making it). Today Emily and I watched the sequel, which Romero called his favorite of the trilogy. It's my least favorite of the three, but I still absolutely love it!
Much of the mainstream critical analysis of Romero's trilogy categorizes the three films into statements about their respective decades: Night of the Living Dead has the racial undertones of the 1960's, and Dawn of the Dead features a criticism of the consumerism of the 70's. Most contemporary reviews I've read of Day of the Dead call it a warning about the unchecked militarism that was rampant in the 80's. While that's certainly an element of Day of the Dead, I think the message is broader and far more subtle.
Listening to old Romero interviews, he always waved away the notion that he was attempting to make a big statement with any of his zombie films. He repeatedly said that the only reason he hired Duane Jones (an African American) to play the lead in Night was because Jones was the best actor who auditioned. Romero claimed that the only reason he set Dawn in a shopping mall was because he thought an indoor shopping mall would be a good place to survive a zombie apocalypse. Now whether or not he was consciously trying to make a statement with each film is immaterial; the important social lessons are clear as a bell in each one, mainly because of the understanding of the social zeitgeist that Romero had.
For this film, Romero finally had the backing of a major distribution studio and was offered a $7 million budget, five times what he had to work with on Dawn. Romero set out to make the "Gone With the Wind" of zombie movies, and turned in a huge script which was summarily nixed by the studio executives for being too ambitious and violent. Romero gave in on the ambitiousness, but would not back down on the gore, insisting that the film remain unrated. The studio knocked the offered budget in half and Romero had to condense a lot of what he wanted to do.
This has been a theme in George Romero's career. Remember when they made that terrible Resident Evil movie in 2002? Romero wrote the original script and was slated to be the film's director after he made a super cool TV ad for the video game for Japan. His original script involved, among other things, zombie dogs tearing into a horse that gallops away as its entrails spill out. The studio took one look at it, threw it into a fire, and hired some hack fraud to do exactly what the executives wanted. The series has now grossed well over a billion dollars internationally, and proves that nothing matters more in Hollywood than money (except maybe covering up rape).
But back to a happier thought: the complete collapse of civilization...
There are a few things that I like about Day over Night or Dawn, despite it being my third favorite overall. The first is the lead female character, Sarah. The acting takes a step forward with Lori Cardille (nothing against either Gaylen Ross or Judith O'Dea, but Cardille is on another level), and she's portrayed from the start as strong, intelligent, level-headed, and motivated to do good. She's the fulcrum for the plot, existing between the two distinct camps in the bunker. She's a scientist in the bunker, but she tries to make peace with the overbearing military leadership, attempts to motivate the checked-out mechanic and helicopter pilot, and extolls the bunker's lead scientist to be more transparent with his research. There's a clear sense throughout the film that if the world were made up of Sarahs, humanity would sort the zombie problem out eventually.
I've read an interview with Cardille where she stated that at times she'd attempt to improvise a more emotional reaction to things (you know, like having to cut off her boyfriend's arm after he'd been bitten) but Romero would stop her, and reshoot the scene. He wanted Sarah to be a paragon of cool logic and strength, not hyper emotional like the military commander, or disconnected from reality like the lead scientist. It's a great choice, and her character's arc from motivated professional to "ok, let's give up and live on an island somewhere" is a good microcosm of the the arc in the trilogy. Humanity had its chance, blew it, continued to blow it repeatedly, and couldn't even manage to hide underground successfully. May as well throw in the towel and turn the world over to the zombies...
I'm also a big fan of what Romero did with the scientist character, Logan (or Frankenstein, if you're so inclined):
Yes, one of the major themes in the film involves oppressive, fascist style militarization, but that's hardly the only criticism Romero highlights. The disorganization in the application of science, unchecked by ethical considerations or even basic human decency, is just as culpable for the decay of order within the bunker. Rhodes plays an excellent foil (mainly because Joe Piloto owns the role) but as we learn more about Logan's experiments, we realize he's lost it completely. He's feeding his pet zombie, Bub, freshly dead soldiers, he's secretly using the recently deceased military commander's brain for experiments, and he's not showing any results to the guys with all the guns.
But he does serve a purpose. His training protocol with Bub demonstrates conclusively that the zombies aren't totally mindless, but operate on instinct. For whatever reason, their new base instinct is to feed upon living human flesh, but they still retain knowledge of their previous lives. In Bub's case, he salutes a soldier, aims a gun, and uses a phone to talk to his Aunt Alicia (my favorite scene in the whole movie):
Romero is demonstrating that if zombies can learn, they're going to be the new dominant species on earth (it helps that they outnumber living humans 400,000 to 1). There are lots of animals that get by on instinct alone, and do just fine. Sure zombies can't reproduce (at least not in a typical manner) but they also don't NEED to eat, nor do they die off without being killed by an external force. This is something Romero explores in more depth in Land of the Dead, but it's kind of a bad movie, so it doesn't resonate.
With this conceit in mind, his treatment of the two "checked out" characters in the film, John and McDermott, makes a lot more sense. From the start of the film, they're reluctant to land the helicopter to look for human survivors, and try not to get involved with the politics of the bunker. They're also the two most indispensable members of the survivors, as John is the only one who can fly the helicopter, and McDermott is the only one who can fix it if it breaks. This means that they enjoy certain luxuries that the others don't. Romero makes their home the most comforting place in this bleak and claustrophobic film. They listen to music, drink heavily, and have a faux backyard for relaxing.
You can also hear Romero's voice come through them. John waxes at length about the futility of trying to preserve humanity's past, and suggests repeatedly that he, Sarah, and McDermott take off in the helicopter and try and enjoy what time they have left. They're painted as the most likable and sensible of the bunch (unless you're a Type A go-getter like Sarah), and give the audience peopole to root for (besides the zombies, of course). They're also the only ones who get their way by the end of the film, giving us easily the "happiest" ending in the trilogy:
The Reagan era sucked, and all sensible people saw the zombie hordes bearing down. They either worked hard (albeit futilely) to change things, or checked out of a broken system. Romero was a blue collar guy from Pittsburgh, and saw what happened to industrial towns after corporations moved jobs to other countries with help from government officials. A system constructed on greed and individual achievement above all else would crumble to dust under the weight of something like the dead rising from their graves. Each film is a study of how we'll invariably fuck up preventing armageddon.
Before I finish up with this review, I want to mention a couple of other things that I feel are particularly great about Day of the Dead: the special effects and the music.
It's amazing what Tom Savini can do with a budget:
He still uses discarded butcher offal for human viscera, but the effects are on a totally different level from Dawn of the Dead. And the zombies look amazing. Gone is the once-over with some blue paint and a dash of fake blood. Here we have truly gruesome shambling corpses in various states of decomposition. Each one looks distinct, and there's some solid belly laughs in the characters that pass by the camera. I'm a huge fan of the marching band zombie in particular.
I also appreciate the synth driven 80's soundtrack of Day. I miss the Italian prog rock stylings of Goblin, but working-man composer John Harrison put together something pretty special. The opening track is really good, and you can hear it heavily sampled in the Gorillaz song M1A1:
I'm such a shameless Dead trilogy nerd that this sample is what convinced me that Gorillaz knew what they were doing. I've liked them ever since.
It might not be as memorable as Dawn of the Dead's perfect musical accompaniment, but it's one of the best horror soundtracks of the 1980's, and ranks up there with some of the more famous stuff John Carpenter created around the same time.
While it's not my favorite of the Dead trilogy, it's still a great horror movie and a classic in its own right. If you hate the 1980's and Morning in America as much as George Romero did (and who wouldn't?), you'll find something to love about Day of the Dead. It's not streaming anywhere, but the Blu Ray is on Amazon for pretty cheap!
Much of the mainstream critical analysis of Romero's trilogy categorizes the three films into statements about their respective decades: Night of the Living Dead has the racial undertones of the 1960's, and Dawn of the Dead features a criticism of the consumerism of the 70's. Most contemporary reviews I've read of Day of the Dead call it a warning about the unchecked militarism that was rampant in the 80's. While that's certainly an element of Day of the Dead, I think the message is broader and far more subtle.
Listening to old Romero interviews, he always waved away the notion that he was attempting to make a big statement with any of his zombie films. He repeatedly said that the only reason he hired Duane Jones (an African American) to play the lead in Night was because Jones was the best actor who auditioned. Romero claimed that the only reason he set Dawn in a shopping mall was because he thought an indoor shopping mall would be a good place to survive a zombie apocalypse. Now whether or not he was consciously trying to make a statement with each film is immaterial; the important social lessons are clear as a bell in each one, mainly because of the understanding of the social zeitgeist that Romero had.
For this film, Romero finally had the backing of a major distribution studio and was offered a $7 million budget, five times what he had to work with on Dawn. Romero set out to make the "Gone With the Wind" of zombie movies, and turned in a huge script which was summarily nixed by the studio executives for being too ambitious and violent. Romero gave in on the ambitiousness, but would not back down on the gore, insisting that the film remain unrated. The studio knocked the offered budget in half and Romero had to condense a lot of what he wanted to do.
This has been a theme in George Romero's career. Remember when they made that terrible Resident Evil movie in 2002? Romero wrote the original script and was slated to be the film's director after he made a super cool TV ad for the video game for Japan. His original script involved, among other things, zombie dogs tearing into a horse that gallops away as its entrails spill out. The studio took one look at it, threw it into a fire, and hired some hack fraud to do exactly what the executives wanted. The series has now grossed well over a billion dollars internationally, and proves that nothing matters more in Hollywood than money (except maybe covering up rape).
But back to a happier thought: the complete collapse of civilization...
There are a few things that I like about Day over Night or Dawn, despite it being my third favorite overall. The first is the lead female character, Sarah. The acting takes a step forward with Lori Cardille (nothing against either Gaylen Ross or Judith O'Dea, but Cardille is on another level), and she's portrayed from the start as strong, intelligent, level-headed, and motivated to do good. She's the fulcrum for the plot, existing between the two distinct camps in the bunker. She's a scientist in the bunker, but she tries to make peace with the overbearing military leadership, attempts to motivate the checked-out mechanic and helicopter pilot, and extolls the bunker's lead scientist to be more transparent with his research. There's a clear sense throughout the film that if the world were made up of Sarahs, humanity would sort the zombie problem out eventually.
I've read an interview with Cardille where she stated that at times she'd attempt to improvise a more emotional reaction to things (you know, like having to cut off her boyfriend's arm after he'd been bitten) but Romero would stop her, and reshoot the scene. He wanted Sarah to be a paragon of cool logic and strength, not hyper emotional like the military commander, or disconnected from reality like the lead scientist. It's a great choice, and her character's arc from motivated professional to "ok, let's give up and live on an island somewhere" is a good microcosm of the the arc in the trilogy. Humanity had its chance, blew it, continued to blow it repeatedly, and couldn't even manage to hide underground successfully. May as well throw in the towel and turn the world over to the zombies...
I'm also a big fan of what Romero did with the scientist character, Logan (or Frankenstein, if you're so inclined):
I particularly love all the empty chairs in this scene. Clearly, our ragtag team of living humans is not doing so hot...
Yes, one of the major themes in the film involves oppressive, fascist style militarization, but that's hardly the only criticism Romero highlights. The disorganization in the application of science, unchecked by ethical considerations or even basic human decency, is just as culpable for the decay of order within the bunker. Rhodes plays an excellent foil (mainly because Joe Piloto owns the role) but as we learn more about Logan's experiments, we realize he's lost it completely. He's feeding his pet zombie, Bub, freshly dead soldiers, he's secretly using the recently deceased military commander's brain for experiments, and he's not showing any results to the guys with all the guns.
But he does serve a purpose. His training protocol with Bub demonstrates conclusively that the zombies aren't totally mindless, but operate on instinct. For whatever reason, their new base instinct is to feed upon living human flesh, but they still retain knowledge of their previous lives. In Bub's case, he salutes a soldier, aims a gun, and uses a phone to talk to his Aunt Alicia (my favorite scene in the whole movie):
Romero is demonstrating that if zombies can learn, they're going to be the new dominant species on earth (it helps that they outnumber living humans 400,000 to 1). There are lots of animals that get by on instinct alone, and do just fine. Sure zombies can't reproduce (at least not in a typical manner) but they also don't NEED to eat, nor do they die off without being killed by an external force. This is something Romero explores in more depth in Land of the Dead, but it's kind of a bad movie, so it doesn't resonate.
With this conceit in mind, his treatment of the two "checked out" characters in the film, John and McDermott, makes a lot more sense. From the start of the film, they're reluctant to land the helicopter to look for human survivors, and try not to get involved with the politics of the bunker. They're also the two most indispensable members of the survivors, as John is the only one who can fly the helicopter, and McDermott is the only one who can fix it if it breaks. This means that they enjoy certain luxuries that the others don't. Romero makes their home the most comforting place in this bleak and claustrophobic film. They listen to music, drink heavily, and have a faux backyard for relaxing.
You can also hear Romero's voice come through them. John waxes at length about the futility of trying to preserve humanity's past, and suggests repeatedly that he, Sarah, and McDermott take off in the helicopter and try and enjoy what time they have left. They're painted as the most likable and sensible of the bunch (unless you're a Type A go-getter like Sarah), and give the audience peopole to root for (besides the zombies, of course). They're also the only ones who get their way by the end of the film, giving us easily the "happiest" ending in the trilogy:
The Reagan era sucked, and all sensible people saw the zombie hordes bearing down. They either worked hard (albeit futilely) to change things, or checked out of a broken system. Romero was a blue collar guy from Pittsburgh, and saw what happened to industrial towns after corporations moved jobs to other countries with help from government officials. A system constructed on greed and individual achievement above all else would crumble to dust under the weight of something like the dead rising from their graves. Each film is a study of how we'll invariably fuck up preventing armageddon.
Before I finish up with this review, I want to mention a couple of other things that I feel are particularly great about Day of the Dead: the special effects and the music.
It's amazing what Tom Savini can do with a budget:
He still uses discarded butcher offal for human viscera, but the effects are on a totally different level from Dawn of the Dead. And the zombies look amazing. Gone is the once-over with some blue paint and a dash of fake blood. Here we have truly gruesome shambling corpses in various states of decomposition. Each one looks distinct, and there's some solid belly laughs in the characters that pass by the camera. I'm a huge fan of the marching band zombie in particular.
I also appreciate the synth driven 80's soundtrack of Day. I miss the Italian prog rock stylings of Goblin, but working-man composer John Harrison put together something pretty special. The opening track is really good, and you can hear it heavily sampled in the Gorillaz song M1A1:
I'm such a shameless Dead trilogy nerd that this sample is what convinced me that Gorillaz knew what they were doing. I've liked them ever since.
It might not be as memorable as Dawn of the Dead's perfect musical accompaniment, but it's one of the best horror soundtracks of the 1980's, and ranks up there with some of the more famous stuff John Carpenter created around the same time.
Summary:
While it's not my favorite of the Dead trilogy, it's still a great horror movie and a classic in its own right. If you hate the 1980's and Morning in America as much as George Romero did (and who wouldn't?), you'll find something to love about Day of the Dead. It's not streaming anywhere, but the Blu Ray is on Amazon for pretty cheap!
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