Day of the Dead

Plot synopsis:
Restless and alone in a brick-paved cubicle, Sarah sees a calendar before her on the wall. It is the month of October and every day is crossed out. While gazing at the image of a pumpkin patch, a dozen decayed arms punch through the wall clutching at her....She wakes from this surreal horror in the back of a helicopter. She's reminded she is living a real nightmare, looking down over a deserted Florida city, in which they land near an abandoned harbor. She is part of a team searching for survivors of a gruesome crisis that began almost a year earlier, a plague that started mysteriously and eventually collapsed human civilization. Her sometimes lover Miguel, an overworked and nerve-wracked soldier, calls for survivors on a bullhorn as they stand on the edge of the street of this now decaying town. Amid the scattered palm fronds, a newspaper blows in the death-scented wind near an early century federal building. It's big bold headline: THE DEAD WALK! (possibly one of the last papers ever printed).The unburied and/or recently dead have returned to life, attacking humans to devour their flesh, most of them becoming zombies, thus adding to their population. No scientist-no army, could contain or cure it. Now the only living creatures in the outside world are the alligators, tarantulas and land crabs that scavenge remains in the streets of this city of the living dead. The hundreds of wailing hordes of dead humans turn towards the bullhorn calls and en masse, march toward the survivors instinctively like cattle, forcing the team to head back to their sanctuary.The helicopter lands almost out of gas inside the military compound surrounded by wire fence. An army of the living dead have managed to find the post and surround the entrance gates, their numbers growing every day. Two more soldiers help secure the chopper, giving their new past times an afternoon break: Johnson, who reads the last issues of porno magazines while Torrez grows gardens of marijuana plants. John, the calm Jamaican pilot and his flask-swilling Irish buddy Bill McDermott are anxious to get on the elevator but not before urging the soldiers to fill the chopper up with gas. Sarah notices Miguel is becoming increasingly stressed and despondent. He hasn't gotten out of the chopper yet and apparently wasn't aware they even landed.They descend into the underground sanctuary Seminole Storage Facility, where they will not see sunlight again for days. Miller is another military officer waiting below for results of the team's search. This time he can tell it was another waste of time. Everyone has to stay in the cold, lonely, clinical white cubicles of the complex while John and Bill choose to stay in one of the Winnebagos stored near the barricades. These are the corrals leading to miles and miles of caves occupied by bats... and specimen zombies, collared at an earlier time by the government. Major Cooper, the commanding officer who died earlier that morning, was buried above the complex near five other graves of men the unit has lost (four soldiers and one civilian scientist). The men had been lost to the dangers of capturing the hostile specimen zombies corralled from the caves.Sarah and her group meet Privates Steel and Rickles who are now in charge of the zombie corralling as Dr. Logan has requested two more guinea pig zombies for his experiments. Sarah and Miguel are asked by the two soldiers to go along with them. Though tired from the 24-hour search mission, they agree and off they go into the caves in the golf cart towards the corral.At the corral capturing pen, Steel and Rickles both sexually harass Sarah verbally before the shell-shocked Miguel, who is of course, oblivious. Then Steel, making his sexism clearer than ever refuses to have Sarah handle the capture and Miguel defiantly takes on the dangerous task to prove himself. He loses control of a particularly excited female specimen jeopardizing the lives of all involved. Sarah manages to re-snare the female zombie before it can bite Rickles. The hot-tempered Steel, enraged that his buddy Rickles was almost lost because of his actions, grabs Miguel, forcing him into the clutches of a caged zombie. Sarah orders him to let him go aiming her Uzi as a possible consequence. After all is said and done, two more specimens are brought back to the lab for study. Miguel is sedated by Sarah in his room, while he uncontrollably berates her.In the dining hall, Dr. Ted Fisher pleads for sterile equipment to conduct proper tests on the specimens. He discusses this with the hostile Captain Rhodes, now in charge, who is also beginning to question the research that has been going on in the months the team has been sharing the facility.Throughout the day, Dr. Matthew Logan, derisively called "Frankenstein" by the soldiers, works on captured specimens, vivisecting the ghouls' chests and removing their organs. When Sarah enters his dark operating theatre to inform him of the meeting Rhodes has scheduled, he excitedly explains that the dead do not eat flesh out of hunger, but rather motor instinct. Another corpse is under a sheet. Logan reveals this one to be only a body with its face carved away leaving only the brain exposed. With electrodes leading to a machine, Logan begins shocking the corpse back to momentary life. Sarah notices Major Cooper's fatigues on the floor. Logan confesses the faceless body is Cooper's corpse and that he had switched it with a specimens for burial. He wanted a fresh corpse, believing his studies could be furthered.Captain Rhodes holds a 7:00 pm meeting with the remaining 12 of the group. Frustrated that he has already lost five soldiers while capturing the dangerous specimens for their "research" Rhodes makes threats to shut the operation down during the meeting in the dining hall. He is aware that the unit is low on ammo, food, medical supplies and now his own men. McDermott explains that his radio equipment is outdated and this makes the soldiers think that there may indeed be survivors but that they are out of radio signal range. When Sarah gets up to leave in the middle of bickering between Steel and McDermott, Rhodes threatens to have her shot. In fact he announces anyone who challenges his orders will be shot. None of this is taken seriously by the scientists who have gotten used to threats and the soldiers' depraved harassment.Later on, Sarah finds herself unable to sleep on the floor of the cubicle as Miguel lays in bed. By now he must be awake. He leans over and his whole chest has been surgically opened and as he turns toward her, his entrails spill out. Sarah is dreaming of course, the result of the visit to the lab earlier that day. She wakes to find Miguel is indeed up and waiting to hassle her about her fear she tries to keep a secret. She finally loses it, screaming at Miguel to leave the room. A few moments later, she wanders the hall of the complex, nearly getting caught in the middle of a scuffle between the soldiers, whose fight spills out into the hallway. She meets up with McDermott, who has been wandering the halls too. They head back to the "Ritz"-the Winnebago where he stays with John. Serving Sarah drinks, John treats her to the relaxed Caribbean atmosphere he's created in the trailer. John also gives a lengthy philosophical lecture on how he believes that the Creator has cursed mankind and that there can be no cure for zombification. So he urges Sarah to forget about the research and wants to leave before the soldiers lose it completely.The next day, Sarah finds Fisher frustrated that the specimens are not accepting a meat substitute called Beef Treats. Logan is trying to convince them that reward is the key to conditioning them. "Bub" is one specimen that seems to be under control. Logan has spared him from dissection, and instead reacquaints him with toothbrushes, razors, phones, books, tape player and even an unloaded gun. His infantile, docile behavior is unique among the zombies although Rhodes and the men witnessing this progress still think these creatures should all be destroyed.The next day, there's another capture attempt. Miguel once again loses control of a female specimen-an old lady, unleashing her on an unsuspecting Miller who is bitten on the neck. His finger is on the trigger of his machine gun when it goes off killing Johnson in the process. Sarah destroys this female zombie. Miguel is then thrown into a fit of denial, attacking the priest specimen which takes a huge bite out of his forearm, forcing Miguel into hysteric shock. The priest is destroyed by Steel. Sarah runs after Miguel now fleeing towards John and Bill's area. Miller begs for Steel to end his life as he knows he would certainly become cursed with living death. Steel looms over him and blows the soldier's brains out.John and Bill hearing Miguel's cries, wait in front of the Ritz. As Sarah draws John's machete from his belt, Miguel is overcome by a blow to the head and laid down. Sarah amputates his mutilated arm in one clean slice. After a hasty treatment, the soldiers led by Rhodes confront the three heroes, ready to destroy Miguel. John and Bill draw guns to defend his life. Rhodes declares that there will be no more experiments and that the specimens will be destroyed tomorrow. Leaving her shaken, Sarah finally breaks down and John comforts her.Going back to the lab for supplies for Miguel, Sarah and Bill discover Johnson's decapitated head has been reanimated by Logan. Horrified, they follow Logan from the refrigerator room into Bub's room. There they witness the rewards he had stressed all along... the fresh remains of Miller and Johnson.Just as the two realize what Logan has done Rhodes and the remaining soldiers appear behind them. Logan shows Rhodes that Bub responds to stimuli and, seeing Rhodes' military uniform, salutes him. Rhodes isn't convinced and drags the pleading Logan into the refrigerator to finish him off with a machine gun...amidst the dumped corpses of the military men killed in the capture attempts. He then orders the guns removed from Sarah and Bill. Then out by the corral area, ordering John to get ready to fly, Rhodes fires a bullet into the head of Fisher to make his point. Rhodes orders Sarah and Billy into the cages leading into the zombie-infested caves. John refuses to go anywhere until they are released. Then they hear the sound of the elevator...Steel and Rickles discover Miguel - has taken apart the control box and that there is no way out of the complex now. They try to rewire it while Rhodes is attacked by John and knocked out. John flees with Rhodes' guns through the corral area to search for his friends in the caves.John yells for Sarah and Billy and kills many would-be specimens in his pursuit. Rhodes finally wakes up and he and Torrez head back to find Steel and Rickles after realizing they are without weapons. A few moments later they would need any and all weapons they could get.The deranged and suicidal Miguel had escaped and opened the front entrance gates above the complex. He is savagely eaten alive as the elevator lowered carrying the hundreds of zombies with it. The three remaining soldiers run for their lives but are attacked and dismembered one by one by ten or more ghouls at once, until the whole place is infested. Steel makes it to the complex where he finds the cowardly Rhodes had locked everyone out, so he blasts open the door and enters taking all the dead with him. He hides in a lab where Bub finds him... firing one of the weapons he had found near the refrigerator room where he found his slain master, Logan. Just as Steel reloads his weapon and has an opportunity to kill Bub from behind a door, he is reunited with the mob of zombies who've entered the room through another door. After he gets bitten on his shoulder, Steel commits suicide rather then suffer the fate of being eaten alive by the mob of zombies.While John finally meets up with Sarah and Billy near the silo, Rhodes desperately goes for his last bit of ammunition and has a final encounter with Bub still firing his pistol (his aim getting better) who leads him to a door where a group of the dead are waiting. In a few moments, the dead are all over the labs and storage rooms feasting on the remains of the soldiers. Rhodes is torn apart and eaten alive, his last words being "CHOKE ON IT!!"When the three survivors finally exit the silo they see at least a hundred zombies marching towards them and the helicopter...which may or may not have any gas. John and Bill cover Sarah as she runs to the chopper door. She opens it only to be greeted by another swarm of arms...However, this is another of Sarah's dreams. She wakes up on some island with John fishing in the surf and birds overhead. On her calendar, she marks out November 4th - the Day of the Dead according to Latin American folklore.

Tags: comedy, suspenseful, grindhouse film, murder, cult, horror, violence, insanity, satire, claustrophobic, revenge, sadist

Review:
"Day of the Dead" received a lot of negative press upon its release in 1985 - people picked apart unsavory characters, OVER-acting from a no-name cast, and outlandishly gory special effects that only Tom Savini himself could be proud of.But none of this makes it a bad experience really, does it?
For the reason that I usually detest zombie flicks, I have worked up a fondness for the works of Romero and over the last two weeks have separately watched each film in his trilogy."Night of the Living Dead" (1968) virtually defined a new genre of horror movie-making and basically set the standards for the many zombie flicks that would follow in its footsteps.
While "Day" is certainly a step down from "Night" and "Dawn," "Day" is more of a claustrophobic horror movie and that allows it to stand on its own as a fitting end to Romero's trilogy.
It's more in sync with the tension of "Night" than it is with the adrenalin-laced action, zombie-slaughterfest that was "Dawn."A team of civilian scientists and a loose army unit clash with each other's motives after they have taken shelter at an underground military base from the hordes of living dead that storm the surface above.
We later get what is one of the most profound and moving experiences in the entire trilogy with "Day," when we see one zombie, nicknamed "Bub" by one particularly eccentric scientist, who eventually learns what it means to be "alive," so to speak."Day of the Dead" obviously isn't a perfect movie, but is more or less a fitting conclusion to one of the most daring film trilogies in the horror genre.
It may be best to not watch "Day" thinking it'll be anything like "Dawn" just because it has military men blasting away mercilessly at the living dead.
While it doesn't quite approach the greatness of "Dawn of the Dead", it is still an intelligent, first-rate horror effort and stands as one of the best genre films of the 80s.In this final entry of George Romero's "Living Dead" trilogy, the walking dead supposedly outnumber the humans by a ratio of 400,000 to 1.
In my opinion Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead' and 'Dawn Of The Dead' are two of the greatest horror movies ever made, but I always thought that 'Day...' was a bit of a let down.
Romero and special effects Tom Savini do wonders on a limited budget, and the movie is full of suspense, a claustrophobic atmosphere and plenty of gore.
Both actors give good performances, the soldiers led by Rhodes (Joseph Pilato) are all suitably ultra macho and deranged, and it was cool to see John Amplas ('Martin') in a supporting role, but the two stand out performances are by Richard Liberty ('The Crazies') as Dr. Logan (who the soldiers refer to as "Frankenstein"), and Howard Sherman as Bub, the zombie he has tamed.
The only negative comment I can make about 'Day Of The Dead' is that it brings home the depressing fact that George Romero hasn't made a truly outstanding movie in close to twenty years.
Night of the Living Dead (his first movie) set the ground work for every single zombie movie to come after it, and Dawn of the Dead, which came 10 years later in 1978 set the new standard for splatter and gore flicks.
If you ask me, without George Romero's zombie trilogy, horror movies would have never been the same.Day of the Dead takes place after the entire Earth has become over-run with zombies.
This would be the final Dead film George Romero would do until Land of the Dead was released, but I do not count that one as part of his original trilogy as they seem to belong together because Night showed us the humble beginnings of the zombie outbreak, Dawn showed us the zombies beginning to overrun us and this film shows us a bleak world where the zombies now outnumber the living 400,000 to one.
Although I'd championed Romero's movies in the pages of magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland, Fantastic Films and Fangoria for years, I was totally blown away by the savvy evinced in DAY OF THE DEAD.
The living have lost the war and now the dead have taken over.A small pocket of survivors consisting of a military and scientific team staying in a secure underground bunker doing research,trying to find an answer to why the dead are walking,and also trying to find any other survivors,but without much success.The sequence of events that follow ultimately lead to their self destruction.Plenty of gore including usual gun-shots to the head,decapitation,amputation,bodies ripped apart,entrails eaten,throat rippings etc.The special effects by Tom Savini are truly outstanding and these scenes where Dr Logan(Richard Liberty)tries to train a zombie are simply amazing.If you love gore you must see "Day of the Dead".Highly recommended..
I didn't like the idea of Bub, the film didn't seem to know what to do with him other than using him to fill out the story  Logan's progress with him seemed such a waste of time that, even if that was the point, it didn't work.When the gore comes it is very hard to watch and a little sickening at times  bodies are ripped into and ripped apart in full bloody colour  as a horror it succeeds because I was looking a way quite a lot of times!
to fill a movie theater with a bunch of teen kids who love drizzle like "The Perfect Man" and "Step Up" and that crap, play DAY OF THE DEAD, which looks great in capital letters, and watch the reaction.
It has every single asset that I consider desirable for a zombie film to be perfect: a claustrophobic environment with little realistic ways out, characters pushed to the limits, paranoia, darkness (literal darkness as well as an obscurity, a density of word, thought and mindset that clearly reflects the apocalyptic world that they now live in), powerlessness, lots of quality suspense, and gore.
Many of those elements are missing in an awful lot of zombie movies."Day of the dead" is also ahead of its time (1985) in special and makeup effects and, beyond that, in the general pessimistic mood that is now sadly a reality.
They are simply the last humans standing, a group of scientists and military who happen to have survived so far (how, and why them, is never told), and trying to live another day in an underground facility (which is one of the best settings ever devised in a horror movie).
Basically, the gray, primary, claustrophobic setting, the rivalry between the military and the scientific communities, and the sickness and nightmares that ail the heroes let us know early on that we're in for a gloomy tale."Day of the dead" is also worth watching because it introduces elements that are completely original in the genre, and have still (to my knowledge) either not been used at all, or have been so only recently.My score is a resounding 10/10!.
Third entry in Romero's 'Dead' films is another great zombie flick, rich with social commentary and horror.
The scientists hope to study the zombies, but tensions are growing high among the refugees.Director Romero considers Day of the Dead to be his favorite zombie effort, and it truly is an outstanding and smart zombie film.
Acceptable though inferior third part on George Romero's Zombie series initiated in the original classic film Night of the living dead and with expert make-up artist , Tom Savini along with Greg Nicotero .
By Dawn of the Dead, they were more bloody and more decayed, and by the time of this film; it would seem that effects guru Tom Savini has been given free licence to create some of the most disgusting effects ever to be seen in a zombie movie!
Romero's Dead films (Night, Dawn, Day, Land, Diary, and Survival) is also the most downbeat.
It's Romero's social commentary and subtext to his films that elevate his stories above other zombie films, but on a straight entertainment level, "Day of the Dead" works exceptionally well.
John Harrison's moody synthesizer score is also worth noting and is under-appreciated in comparison to the much more showy score by Goblin for "Dawn of the Dead." One interesting note on this film, "Day of the Dead" was originally going to have twice the budget and a much larger scale, with the original script including electrified fences, multiple army outposts, and even an army of trained zombies, Romero ran into issues with the film's financiers and agreed to cutting his budget in half for creative control and not being required to deliver an R-rated film.
However the sour and mean spirited Captain Rhodes (Joe Pilato) gets nosy about who might be a traitor for he might unleash the darkest day for everyone.Highly underrated entry of the George Romero living dead saga!
Here the zombies are more improved then the Grey-faced simple ones from "Dawn of the Dead" and the gore here is very realistic and stomach-churning thanks to the magic of Tom Savini and crew creating the grossest special effects shown in a 80's horror movie.
The music score by John Harrison is not as good as Dawn of the Dead's score from Goblin but it's very effective for 80's music, this is an excellent Sci-fi horror movie that rocks the house for it's nice performances and graphic gore galore.It's definitely not for the faint of heart but it's one hell of a fun ride for fans of zombie movies..
And Mr. Howard, he's easily the most memorable zombie ever, period.The rest of the cast is pretty solid, starring the likes of the beautiful Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander and Jarlath Conroy.Aside all the wonderful dark cinematography, its amazing opening (gotta love the alligator) and claustrophobia -causing atmosphere, the film also delivers the goods.
But i wouldn't change this movie for the world its the essential horror film , just look at how many other films and TV shows have used material from Day of the Dead - resident evil extinction ( the zombie using the phone like bub) 28 days later( with the physcotic military & keeping the infected alive for testing) the band GORILLAZ use audio from day of the dead in the beginning of the song, south park made an episode about zombies and borrowed a lot of elements from Day of the dead.I must say that the opening scene in this movie throws you into the action head first, the characters land the helicopter in a city and use a megaphone to see if there is any survivors.
the first thing i noticed when i first watched this film, was just how genuinely scary the zombies looked compared to the blue skinned ones from Dawn of the dead.
Yes, you can have a dramatic feature inserted in a Horror movie that deals with the undead, military stations, and scientific sub-plots."Day Of The Dead" gives the audience a message in the kinds of "Cannibal Holocaust" when it comes to humanity, a scientific revolution that isn't necessary something good, human instincts and even greed, betrayal, and violence.Forget about the previous "Dead" films because "Day" takes a more mature and critical orientation.
Unlike other zombie flicks like 28 Days, Return of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead, this movie effectively does a fantastic and almost perfect job of zombie character development.
But I enjoyed this film so much, its probably the best zombie flick that I've seen since Night of the Living Dead and really at the end of the day and of the movie, you have to shed a tear for Bud, after he lost the only father he really had..
Tom Savini definitely outdoes himself here, a huge improvement from this film's predecessor.Day of the Dead has it all: zombies that actually look like walking corpses, realistic gore that makes you think you are seeing the real deal and great actors portraying awesome characters.From beginning to end, this is an apocalyptic film that actually FEELS like it's the end of the world as we know it.
Each movie visits different parts of the world to show that what is going on is really an epidemic.In "Day of the Dead", we are watching a group of military people and scientist locked inside an underground bunker trying to solve what exactly is causing the dead to walk and eat people.
But it is not the threat of the living dead that proves the only danger is the new dying world.Romero does a great job at telling the story he has in mind, and it is presented in a very enjoyable manner, which makes his movies quite entertaining and watchable.The story in the 1985 movie "Day of the Dead" is about a group of soldiers and scientists who have barricaded themselves in an underground bunker facility.
Some scientists are studying the living dead in order to understand more about them and to control them, a study which does not sit well with the armed military forces.Granted that this movie is from 1985, so the special effects and zombie make-up is a bit outdated by today's standards.
Romero's original Living Dead trilogy set the standard for American zombie movies and this is the walking dead equivalent to 'Return of the Jedi'.In 'Day of the Dead', there's the veneer of a story focusing on a group of government assigned scientists and military personnel posted in an isolated underground mine-come-research facility sometime after the zombie apocalypse.
Romero may be trying to capture the human factor of the original Night of the living dead but here it only seems to get in the way of an otherwise great zombie fest.The makeup is first rate and the gore is delectable but in my opinion this may be the weakest of the four Romero zombie movies.None the less this is required viewing for any horror fan..
How would YOU behave?Here, the dead walk in the light of day, while the living are survive, in an underground tomb, turning everything we know and expect neatly upside down.Romero has combined all of the insightful social and political commentary of his previous two "Dead" films, subtracted most of the humor, pumped up the gore, and in the process created an absolutely claustrophobic masterpiece that becomes more remarkable with repeated viewings.
Still, I'm also a generalist film fan, and although much underrated, "Day of the Dead" is worthy addition to the Romero zombie mythos and a well-crafted film in its own right.Rather than dissect the film one more time, I'd like to take a moment to praise the recent DVD reissue: it kicks!
No movie in the history of cinema has made my critical radar as confounded as this one; it seems like I've given no other film more chances to earn my approval, but lately it has really started to grow on me, to the point where I can (almost) see what people mean when they call it "the best in the trilogy." Of course, I'm not going to go that far, but I am going to praise it for what it is: a brilliant depiction of a desperate situation, the nihilism of existence after existence (as a human being) has been rendered meaningless, and a reminder of why humans would be better off conforming to the zombie plague instead of trying to fight it.My initial viewings always were soured by the human characters, who were unpleasant or apathetic enough to drive me to indifference or contempt.
This point is boldly underlined in "Day of the Dead," where military and science is at war, unable to work cooperatively toward common goals; in such a desperate situation, it makes an ironic bit of sense that the most apathetic characters also turn out to be the most sensible.Lately, I have really come to appreciate the human element of Romero's films.
By comparison, the humans are selfish, manipulative, and hopelessly flawed in their actions, which ultimately determines the downfall that causes the inevitable third-act zombie riot.Though Romero seems to be more ambitious than can be sustained for 100 minutes, his effort is admirable--"Day of the Dead" is a fine showcase for Tom Savini's gore, memorable characters (especially Joe Pilato's loathsome Rhodes), and down-to-earth writing (working from a truncated script).
Romero's original trilogy of Night, Dawn and Day remain the best of all the zombie movies done over the years.
Romero takes a different direction on his third installment in the Night of the Living Dead series.This movie is so much more than just a zombie movie.
Although the film is certainly worse than the other Romero's brilliant action-packed classics, I think the Day of the Dead still is a good 80s zombie horde film..
In fact, for over an hour, the hordes of living dead get very little screen time, as the story focuses on the tension between the characters, and the efforts of an off-the-wall scientist to train a captured zombie named Bub to act human.
In fact, for over an hour, the hordes of living dead get very little screen time, as the story focuses on the tension between the characters, and the efforts of an off-the-wall scientist to train a captured zombie named Bub to act human.
Many horror fans are expecting another Dawn of the Dead esquire film (characters you like, a comfortable/relatiable setting), but Romero takes us out of comfortability and out of the shopping mall and throws us in a confined place with people we really don't care for.
Day of the Dead is the third movie in George A Romero's classic tale of the world being overrun by zombies.
it was an extremely creative and original zombie movie next to the one that started it all, "Night of the Living Dead." This movie also showed the talent that the great tom savini has with special effects.
1985 had three great zombie movies, and then there was Day of the Dead.