Day of the Dead (film)
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| Day of the Dead | |
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| Directed by | George A. Romero |
| Produced by | Richard P. Rubinstein |
| Written by | George A. Romero |
| Starring | Lori Cardille Terry Alexander Joseph Pilato Gary Howard Klar |
| Distributed by | United Film Distribution Company |
| Release date(s) |  July 3, 1985 September 12, 1986 |
| Running time | 102 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3,500,000 (est.) |
| Preceded by | Dawn of the Dead |
| Followed by | Land of the Dead |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Day of the Dead (1985) is a horror film by director George A. Romero, and the third of four movies beginning with Night of the Living Dead, continued in Dawn of the Dead and completed in Land of the Dead. Steve Miner is directing a remake which is set to be out in 2007.
Day of the Dead deals with the zombie assault on a military establishment, satirizing the military mindset in the process. The film received the least enthusiastic critical review of the three films. Romero's original vision for the film was ambitious, but he accepted a prohibitively small budget in exchange for the production company to release the film without a rating. If he had chosen to go for an R rating, rather than being unrated, he would have had seven million dollars to work with. Instead, however, was given a mere three and a half million. The resulting film was smaller than the original but introduces the possibility that the undead are more capable of adaptation than was originally believed. The original script was considerably more complex and ambitious, involving the training of zombies to fight other zombies. Most of the lost themes were carried over to 2005's Land of the Dead.
The film has been widely criticized for various reasons. Many fans of the second film, Dawn of the Dead, were disappointed in this third offering, as its plot is considerably less sweeping in nature. Fans of the film point out, however, that the iconic human characters purposely contrast with the precocious zombie lead, "Bub", underscoring that zombies and humans are not so different. An outrageous selection of zombies are presented, and the special effects are worlds ahead of what was presented in the previous installment. Although the film is set somewhere in Florida (perhaps in Fort Myers or Sanibel Island, where the initial scenes were filmed), it was primarily filmed in Pittsburgh just like the earlier installments and undead extras include the dean of Carnegie Mellon University and his wife.
The overall tone of the movie is grim, unrelenting and dour, a change from the comedic satire of Dawn. The survivors in the film fear that they are the last humans on the face of the earth, though in Land of the Dead, it is evident that this is not the case. Perhaps more prevalent than in the other films in the series, Day plays on the theme that humanity is a greater danger to itself than any outside threat. The living characters in the film are made up of three distinctive sects who have their own ideas regarding their prediciment: soldiers who want to destroy the zombies, scientists who want to study them for a resolution, and civilians who want nothing more than to live out their last days without care. This causes friction and a lapse in cooperation as characters struggle with one another rather than work together to survive the world that has changed beyond their control. The violence and gore also reach a level of intensity that the two previous movies did not. Being killed by a zombie in this film is presented as a horrific and brutally drawn out ordeal.
Despite its lacklustre critical reception, the film is noted for its special effects work, notably Tom Savini's make-up and special effects work; and it was honored in 1985 with a Saturn Award for Best Make-Up.
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[edit] Plot
A scientist, Sarah, is looking over a calendar on a cinderblock wall. Suddenly, a swarm of decayed arms breaks through the wall, several of them grabbing her. Sarah awakes from a nightmare, safe in the back seat of a flying helicopter. The pilot, John, lands in an unnamed Florida city that has become a ghost town where the undead roam freely in the streets. Sarah and her three companions have arrived in the town looking for survivors, supplies, and fuel for the helicopter. As the dead gather in greater numbers, they decide to leave.
They fly back to their underground refuge, a military facility run by a group of U.S. Army soldiers who appear to be growing increasingly paranoid, especially since they haven’t had any contact with any other living people in several weeks. The compound is surrounded by a high security fence that separates them from the nearby undead. The undead beyond the fence are gathering in increasing numbers.
The commanding officer is the despondent Captain Rhodes, who is verbally abusive and shows a clear disdain for Sarah and her fellow scientists who inhabit the base. He believes their continuing investigation of the living dead (presumably, for answers to the plague that has resurrected them) is useless and that the dead are simply mindless animals to be destroyed. He has also lost several of his men, who are buried near the security fence above ground. Sarah and her travel companions attend a meeting where they report to Rhodes that they were unable to locate any survivors on their latest jaunt. They also mention that they traveled at least 100 miles in both directions along the coast and also found nothing.
Sarah is invited by John, and his friend, William, to their private residence, The Ritz. She has a drink with them and they discuss human survival in the face of crisis like the one they are experiencing. John retains the uncomplicated belief that human nature will prevail in spite of the threat of not only the undead outside but also Rhodes’ increasing despotic nature.
One particular tunnel complex of the underground compound has been used to corral zombies for study by the scientists. During an operation to retrieve a few undead “specimens,” one of the soldiers, Miguel Salazar, is bitten, along with another soldier who is killed immediately by one of his comrades. Salazar’s carelessness during the retrieval is due to exhaustion brought on by Rhodes’ overbearing demands of him. (Rhodes also believes that Salazar’s romantic involvement with Sarah is causing him to become weak as a soldier.) Salazar runs away, obviously in pain, to The Ritz, seeking refuge from the other troops who will shoot him on sight. Sarah catches him, pins him to the ground, and chops off his bitten arm with her machete. The other soldiers arrive and are about to kill Salazar. A short standoff ensues between the troops and Sarah, John, and William, who have their own guns to defend themselves. Sarah claims that she has prevented Salazar from being infected because she amputated the bitten limb and cauterized the stump. Private Steele, a soldier unquestiongly loyal to Rhodes, threatens Sarah, telling her that if Salazar turns he will be a danger to the security of the compound.
Meanwhile, Dr. Matthew Logan has been conducting experiments on the undead collected from the corral. Some of his work involves dissection of the undead to see how long they will live after being injured. His other experiment is far more outrageous: he has been working with a zombie he has named “Bub” to see how much of his human mind he may have retained. Logan has accomplished this by providing Bub with various everyday objects such as a tape recorder playing classical music, a telephone and a book. Bub seems to remember using all these objects.
Sarah and her colleague, Dr. Fisher, stumble on some of the more gruesome details of Logan’s experiments: one zombie corpse is attached to an electrical device in an attempt to study its bodily functions. The most shocking discovery is the freezer housing the bodies of the soldiers killed under Rhodes’ command. Rhodes finds out and charges into Logan’s lab demanding an explanation. Logan shows Rhodes a few of Bub’s more unique tricks, such as the way Bub remembers how to operate a pistol and that he salutes Rhodes, suggesting he may have been in the military when alive. Rhodes is still not convinced that Logan’s experiments have any value and, upon discovering that Logan has been using the bodies of his dead troops, shoots the doctor.
Rhodes orders John to prepare the helicopter for evacuation. John refuses and Rhodes shoots Dr. Fisher in the head. William and Sarah are taken to the holding corral and are forced inside with the undead. They make their way through the caverns and tunnels, trying to stay alive amongst the inhabitants.
During this time, Salazar has made his way to the compound’s main elevator to the surface. After sabotaging the control box, he surfaces and opens the gate surrounding the entrance. The dead advance immediately and kill Salazar. While Steele and Rickles try to fix the control box, Rhodes and Private Torrez are knocked unconscious by John. John takes their weapons and runs to help Sarah and William in the holding area.
The undead easily infiltrate the complex. The soldiers are outnumbered and are horrifically killed one at a time. Rhodes encounters Bub, who seems to want to shoot the Captain for killing Dr. Logan. Bub succeeds in shooting Rhodes twice, but a pack of zombies ultimately surrounds Rhodes and viciously rip him apart. Bub then gives Rhodes a salute, grinning as he turns and shambles away, his fate unknown.
Sarah, John and William make it to the helicopter, not knowing if it has any fuel remaining. The dead are quickly surrounding the chopper and are reaching for Sarah when she awakes from a nightmare: she and her two companions are safe on a remote island.
[edit] Notes
- Before Land of the Dead was released, director George A. Romero has stated that this is his favorite of his Dead films.
- The book Dr. Logan gives to Bub is Stephen King's ’Salem's Lot. King is a good friend of Romero's and was reportedly to appear in the film as a zombie for a scene, but couldn't make it.
- The film's original script featured a group of survivors living in an army base surrounded by electric fences in the jungle with several army soldiers. It also featured a large army of trained zombies. The film studio that green-lit the production, however, demanded that Romero eliminate the most gruesome scenes from the script. If he did so, the studio would give him a $7,000,000 budget along with an 'R' rating. Romero refused to make any changes to the script and the studio allowed him to film as much gore as he wanted but the budget would be cut drastically to $3,500,000 and the film would be given an Unrated tag. Romero accepted and filming began in late 1984. According to one of the film's producers, had they used the original script, "it would have been like Raiders of the Lost Ark...but with zombies." [citation needed]
- All the zombie extras in the climax received a cap that said "I Played A Zombie In Day of the Dead", a copy of the newspaper from the beginning of the film (with the headline "THE DEAD WALK!"), and one dollar.
- Members of the band NRBQ were zombie extras, and are briefly visible in the film.
- In the opening scene when Lori Cardille is looking at the calendar and dozens of zombie arms break through the wall, one of the zombie's hands grabs her breast. The hand belonged to her husband who had quickly stopped by the set.
- This is the only George A. Romero zombie film in which a zombie actually has a line of dialogue. Bub the zombie says, "Hello, Aunt Alicia," when prompted by Dr. Logan.
- In the scene change right after Logan tells the zombie that it needs to sit in the dark and think about what it did, and punishes it by turning off the light, a slightly different version of the muzak from the mall in Dawn of the Dead can be heard.
- Joseph Pilato ad-libbed the famous line, "Choke on 'em!"
- The original script states that the events of this film take place five years after Dawn of the Dead.
- At the end of the original script, the dead are no longer rising. This is never explained, and all current zombies remain so.
- In the cafeteria scene, McDermott says that "all of the shopping malls are closed," a clear reference to the film's predecessor Dawn of the Dead, which is set primarily in a shopping mall.
- The only film in Romero's dead series which does not show a person being bitten by a zombie and returning as a zombie themselves. (Technical note: in a Romero zombie film, zombie bites cause a lethal infection, after which the victim rises as a zombie. However, a person who dies for any reason -- car crash, heart attack, cancer -- will also reanimate as the undead, except in cases of massive brain damage; i.e., committing suicide with a bullet to the brain will prevent one's resurrection.)
- Joseph Pilato is one of four actors to appear in more than one of Romero's Dead films (although he plays different characters). In Dawn of the Dead he plays a police officer at the docks, but most of his scenes only appear in the extended version. Still this has led some fans to speculate that it is the same character. Taso Stavrokis appears in Dawn of the Dead and Day, also as different characters. Tom Savini reprised his role of "Blades" from Dawn of the Dead in Land of the Dead. Romero himself has appeared (uncredited) in the first three films with a voice cameo in Land.
- Due to the rights issue being owned by another studio, in an attempt to cash in on the name Day of the Dead: Contagium was released through Tarus Entertainment. The film itself has nothing to do with any of the Romero movies although the box art claims otherwise.
- The intestines seen in various scenes were actually real sets of sheep intestines. After a crew member had accidentally left the guts in an unplugged refrigerator, the intestines had become so vile and rotten that Joseph Pilato was nearly unable to complete the scene where Captain Rhodes is torn in half, due to the smell.
- Although the story is bleak, Romero inserts some humour into the film. When the military base is being overrun by zombies, there is a clown zombie and a nun zombie among the crowd.
[edit] Miscellaneous
- Zombie film and Romero fans noted the change in zombie behavior in this film. Many of the zombies generally had a grey green color to their skin. This was done possibly to show the long term effects of decomposition and the elements. Another interesting change is the sudden increase in zombie strength. In both Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead (original), the zombies were generally weak and easy to push past. In Day of the Dead, the zombies had the power to pull human limbs, heads and bodies apart with relative ease - leading some fans to call this the "Play-doh effect."
- The song "M1 A1", from the self-titled 2001 Gorillaz album, samples the pulsing synthesizers and the cries of "Hello! Is anyone out there?" from the opening of the film. My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult also sampled dialogue for a track on their album Confessions of a Knife.
[edit] External links
- Day of the Dead at the Internet Movie Database
- Day of the Dead at Movie Tome
- Original Day of the Dead script
| Films directed by George A. Romero |
|---|
| Night of the Living Dead | There's Always Vanilla | The Crazies | Season of the Witch | Martin Dawn of the Dead | Knightriders | Creepshow | Day of the Dead | Monkey Shines | Two Evil Eyes The Dark Half | Bruiser | Land of the Dead | Diary of the Dead | Solitary Isle |
| The Living Dead films |
|---|
| Official Romero directed films |
| Night of the Living Dead • Dawn of the Dead • Day of the Dead • Land of the Dead • Diary of the Dead |
| Unofficial sequel/spin-offs |
| Italian Zombi series: Zombi 2 • Zombi 3 • Zombi 4 (aka Oltre la Morte or After Death) |
| Other: Day of the Dead 2: Contagium • Children of the Living Dead |
| Remakes |
| Night of the Living Dead (1990) • Dawn of the Dead (2004) • Night of the Living Dead 3-D • Day of the Dead (2007) |
| Return of the Living Dead series |
| Return of the Living Dead • Return of the Living Dead Part II • Return of the Living Dead 3 • Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis • Return of the Living Dead: Rave from the Grave |
| Spoofs/parodies |
| Night of the Living Bread • Shaun of the Dead |
