Movie Review of Day of the Dead (1985)

It's not fair to say that I got nothing at all from this movie.  There was a two second glimpse of a ballerina zombie, lurching by on tip-toe, which will amuse me for years to come.

However, ballerina zombies do not a great movie make; and the rest was abysmal.  I could act better than most of the cast.  I've seen kindergarten nativity plays acted better than this lot.  The stereotypes galled.  The formula was in evidence, but failed to deliver. 

The zombie make up was good.  I'll give them that.

I'm so disappointed with George A. Romero, because I know that he has wonderful zombie stories in him.  He's directed the most classic movies of the genre!

Night of the Living Dead was sublime.  What Dawn of the Dead lost in deep commentary, it more than made up with in entertaining story-lines and sheer hilarity.

What precisely did Day of the Dead bring to the party?  Maybe a faint anti-war message, in all of the 'I'm in the army and I'm really stupid' bravado; backed up by the fact that even a zombie can be a soldier.  In fact, zombies make really great soldiers.

The gore-fest fans had some great (albeit unrealistic) moments of bloody slaughter. 

There was an underlying theme of 'if we don't work together and communicate, then we're all doomed'.  But it was all so clumsily done, with cringe-worthy posturing, that frankly I stopped caring after the first half an hour.

Those who have seen the first two know that the whole of the USA is infested with zombies. 

Deep underground, in an old military installation, a group of scientists are working hard to understand the living dead from a medical research point of view.

Sarah wants to reverse the phenomenon; Matthew (aka Frankenstein (pictured)) seems more interested in training zombies to do his will.  It's never quite stated what the third scientist, Ted, actually wants to do at all.  They are supported by a team of military men, alongside a helicopter pilot and a radio operator. 

Nobody is happy.  Zombies have surrounded the complex.  Forays in the helicopter have established that there's no living person but them for one hundred miles radius of their installation.

As for the soldiers, most are dead and buried outside.  One is on the brink of a nervous breakdown.  Their leader, Captain Rhodes, is trigger happy and practically insane with the pressure.

It's like watching a tribute to Marlon Brando's Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, but without a smidgeon of his acting talent.

It's quite interesting to watch George A. Romero grapple (badly) with the pressures of Feminism in his zombie movies.

The first three came out during the rise and heyday of the Women's Lib Movement; and his work was singled out for especial criticism accordingly. 

To be fair, Night of the Living Dead was absolutely patronizing to its female characters. In Dawn of the Dead, he portrayed Francine as a strong woman, who even delivered a Feminist mini-speech halfway through. 

By Day of the Dead, he went one better and wrote Sarah as the actual protagonist. 

She arrived wearing a feminine version of Indiana Jones's best adventuring outfit.  She barked so many orders that it was obvious that she was in charge.  It took until about half an hour before we even realize that she's not the boss, she's just one of the scientists.

Yay for strong, competent and intelligent female characters!  But oh dear on just about everything else. 

The sexist speeches in Night of the Living Dead were casually delivered.  Those saying lines equating women with helpless children weren't trying to be offensive.  That was genuinely their world-view and it would have surprised them to know that it was wrong.

By Day of the Dead, the speeches were in your face and aggressive, designed to intimidate Sarah with shows of strength (including actual slaps across the face) and threats of rape. 

The comments were framed to depict just how nasty the power-hungry soldiers were, rather than anything particularly anti-female on the part of the film-maker.  They were uttered from the same mouths which called Johnnie a 'jungle bunny' and Miguel a 'Spic'.  Repeatedly.

Rather more subtle was the fact that the only Irishman in there was depicted as constantly drunk. 

I'm not saying that those army men had to be politically correct, as that would have been out of character.  But the sexism and racism were hurled in lieu of anything else clever to say in the script.

What happened to the sentiments in the first two movies?  There the color of the two black men didn't even draw comment.  This one just felt puerile in comparison.