Movie Review: Day of the Dead (1985)

Day of the Dead (1985) written and directed by George A. Romero

I saw this over the summer on the ITV player but didn't want to post the review till after I could see Dawn of the Dead, which was just on the BBC's iPlayer! Then it showed up on the iPlayer so I could watch it again.

MPAA rating

Unrated

ZPAA rating

Adults only

Gore level

10 out of 10--The gore was full on here: lots of nasty looking zombies in full color (generally green-gray or blue-gray) in varying states of decay and damage; lots of zombies eating flesh and tearing up people (even people who are still alive); lots of zombie deaths by gunshot, head slicing, head drilling, etc.; a corpse with bugs crawling on it; internal organs falling out several times; cauterizing a wound with a hand-made flaming torch; blood flying and oozing everywhere.

Other offensive content

Lots of swearing and profanity; vulgar references to sex though nothing to see here; disrespectful attitudes towards everyone; calling the zombie problem a punishment from God; the U. S. Army men are a bunch of unsympathetic jerks.

How much zombie mythology/content

Unlike Night of the Living Dead, this movie doesn't hint at any causes for the zombies, other than one character who speculates that they are a punishment from God. Certain zombies show some more civilization or attempts at living peaceably with decent humans, though perhaps a mad scientist doesn't really count as decent.

How much fun

I laughed once or twice during the film and it seemed like it was intentional. At one point, the mad scientist gives a book to a zombie to see if he would try to read it. What book is it? Stephen King's Salem's Lot, not exactly the sort of tome to inspire civilized living.

Synopsis & Review

A mixed group of scientists and soldiers are hiding out in an underground bunker in Florida. They go out by helicopter to find people who might still be alive. The effort has met with no success. In the meantime, the scientists try to figure out what is going on, if there is a cure for the zombies or if they can be pacified in some way other than feeding on the living.

The movie features a lot of discussion and arguing between the scientists and the soldiers. In general, the soldiers are presented as a bunch of jerks who are more interested in fun things like killing and throwing their authority around. The soldiers don't see the point of trying to pacify the zombies in any way other than head wounds. And they have doubts about discovering causes or cures. They are cartoonish and one-dimensional villains for the movie.

The scientists are pretty rational. One doctor (who is nicknamed "Dr. Frankenstein") locates the part of a person's brain that survives when zombified. He attempts to civilize a zombie through a set of trial-and-error tests, giving rewards to the zombie (nicknamed "Bub") when he behaves properly. Rewards include classical music, books, and other items. You know the scientist is crazy when he offers a gun to the zombie to see if it recognizes it and what to do with it. Also, he keeps his experiments under wraps because he doesn't think the soldiers will go along with it. He's certainly right about that. Once he tells more people about what he is doing, the whole group starts to fall apart.

Civilization is a big theme in this movie. In addition to trying to civilize the zombies, there's also the sticky issue of these people trying to live together. They have a really hard time working together or communicating. Often they will have meetings where they talk past each other, only presenting their own points of view without listening to the others. They debate about the value of reestablishing the prior civilization. Meanwhile, two misfits, a helicopter pilot and a radio guy, have set up a little tropical resort room in the bunker where they can pretend they are at the beach having a good time rather than waiting around for the end to come.

The movie is noticeably from the 1980s. The music score and the hairdos immediately place the movie in time. The production is amazingly good, though it may be too good in the gory scenes, especially when people are pulled apart on screen. There's a few too many scary scenes that are just dream sequences, with the dying character suddenly waking up and saying, "Whew, good thing it was just a dream!" Once or twice is okay for something like that; here it is overplayed.

The ending is much more upbeat for a Romero film. It's reminiscent of Trading Places or Shawshank Redemption and is a bit of a strange counterpoint to the rest of the film. Maybe that is supposed to be a dream sequence too.

The movie is pretty interesting in its discussions though the depiction of the military is a little too relentlessly negative. The gore does require a pretty high tolerance for such things.

Movie Trailer

Save the Zombie Chapel

In lieu of the review of Dawn of the Dead (which I have not been able to watch since Netflix has not allowed me to change my queue for over two weeks--but that's another story), here's a news update from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The final remaining building featured in Night of the Living Dead (if you don't count the scene with the U.S. Capitol) is slated for demolition unless $50,000 can be raised to save it in the next year. Read the article here.

The plan for the restored chapel is to use it either as a museum or for zombie-themed events (weddings, graduation parties, etc.). To raise money, special events are being held across the country and organizers plan to sell various items through their web site. Right now all that is available is the poster on this page, but t-shirts and other items are in the works.

If you want to support the project or keep up to date, there's a Facebook group and the group's own web site.

h/t to Grandpa for the link to the story.

Review: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Night of the Living Dead (1968) directed by George A. Romero

Having recently listened to a commentary on Shaun of the Dead, I realized I've only seen this first movie of the Romero zombie canon. I plan on watching one a month for coming months with a review at the end of the month. So if you want to watch beforehand, see Dawn of the Dead, i.e. the shopping mall one, before November 31, 2011.

MPAA rating

Unrated

ZPAA rating

Adults only

Gore level

9 out of 10--If this movie had been in color, it'd be a ten. The zombies aren't so dessicated or terrible to look at, but when they start eating people's guts (you see a hand, a shoulder, and what looks like intestines), it's extremely gross and horrifying. There are several ineffective gunshot wounds inflicted on the zombies and some people are shot as well. Lots of mostly off-screen head blows; one particularly gruesome murder of a mother by her zombie child with a trowel.

Other offensive content

Lots of mild profanity with one blasphemy; bad attitudes; people slapping people or roughing up other people; lots of cigarette smoking; two naked female rear ends seen from a distance and not sexual (she's a zombie); one character exhibits callous disregard towards church going and praying (though that character is the first one to get it from a zombie; serves him right!).

How much zombie mythology/content

This movie seems to be the only instance of the dead rising because of radiation (leaked from a falling satellite). Unless you count Godzilla. I haven't seen the other Romero zombie movies, so I'm not sure that they all stick to the same explanation. The zombies are generally slow moving though they do exhibit some basic intelligence, like staying away from fire and using rocks to break windows.

How much fun

I didn't really laugh much while watching this. It is a very intense but enjoyable watch if you can make it through the gore. The characters are pretty well fleshed out (until they are eaten, of course!) and not entirely one-dimensional though some of the performances are a bit amateurish. A lot of interesting ideas are thrown around even if they aren't followed through.

Synopsis & Review

The story begins with a car driving along empty, rural roads. A brother and sister are on a Sunday drive to their father's grave to leave some flowers. The brother really isn't interested and complains a lot about the cost of the flowers, what happened to the display from last year, why can't Mom go on her own instead of sending us 200 miles into the country, etc. The sister finds this annoying. Even more annoying is when he taunts her for praying at the grave ("didn't you do that this morning at church, Barbara? Why do you need to do it here?") and for being afraid of hanging out in the cemetery. As they are leaving, she is attacked by a disheveled man who won't stop. Her brother comes to the rescue but cracks his skull on a tombstone. She flees from the man to her car. Realizing her brother has the keys, she locks the doors and releases the parking brake to coast away as the man pounds on her car. She inevitably crashes and races off to a house, where she and a slowly accumulating band of strangers try to hold off the ravenous, undead hordes that keep attacking the house.

The movie is an extremely effective horror movie in many ways. First, the plot and theme is more focused on how the people trapped in the house work together or against each other than on how they fight the undead. They try to make plans to escape or to hunker down and wait it out, but none of them work out. The drama (and the horror) is all about losing control. Barbara is scared out of her wits for most of the movie and can barely talk and is no help at all. Ben, the main male protagonist, has lots of ideas and plans but can hardly get anyone to help or see things from his point of view. Even when they do use his plan, things careen wildly out of control.

Second, information is dealt out at just the right pace to increase tension. The people find a radio which provides updates on what's going on over the eastern third of the United States. At first, the creatures are assumed to be mass murderers on a rampage. Eventually, more details are revealed, like how they eat their victims and how it all may have been caused by radiation from a satellite. The radio (and eventually a TV) provide diagetic voice over/exposition as we watch people nailing up boards or biting their fingernails to nubs or arguing the best plan of action.

One of the weaknesses is the "scientific" explanation of how the dead are rising. Radiation activating people's brains and making them into mindless cannibals seems a little ridiculous, though maybe I am looking at a 1960s idea with 2011 eyes. The explanation seems thrown in so as to point the finger at the military and the federal government for what's going wrong. Even the Feds don't have their story straight. On a television report, the military guy in DC tells the scientist, "That's not what we agreed to say," and they provide no effective plans. A local sheriff has a posse of ghoul-shooters who help to clean up the problem, though they too are indiscriminate in a shocking way at the end. Authorities seem to be useless or even counter-productive.

Civilization collapses on the large scale with the government being divided and ineffective. On the small scale, people turn on each other and treat each other as means to an end rather than as brothers in arms. Perhaps that's the greatest horror of all. You can't depend on other people to do the right thing when the going gets tough.

Movie Trailer