Rish's Reviews
This is another of my childhood favourites, which still holds up really well, even though I feel it's probably the weakest entry in George Romero's "Living Dead" series. It takes place some time after the events in Dawn of the Dead, when humanity is greatly outnumbered by zombies, and the few people who remain can't even live a vestige of a normal life. A group of scientists and military men are stuck together in an underground bunker, struggling to keep their sanity as well as their lives. The scientists, including the film's star, Lori Cardille as Sarah, are trying to get to the root of the living dead problem, while the military men, led by the frighteningly unstable Captain Rhodes (Joe Pilatto) are getting closer and closer to becoming as savage as the creatures they're in hiding from. As Romero is wont to do, there is a subtext here saying something about technology, about the military, about the search for knowledge, and about what makes us human.
Claustrophobic and unsettling as few films are, the film is certainly most famous for its fantastic makeup effects by the great Tom Savini. Ranking up there with the most violent movies ever made, there are moments where, if you can manage to not look away in revulsion, you ask yourself, "How did they DO that?" Even nearing twenty years later, in the shameful CGI world we live in, the splatter effects are amazing.
The film sure isn't for everybody. This was soulless, mean-spirited, and bleak . . . but perhaps that's what Romero was going for, another statement on society as he saw it in the mid-80's. The language is extraordinarily rough and there's literally no humour to break the film's tension. Very few of the characters are sympathetic, most of the scenes and interactions are uncomfortable ones, and a lot of the gore seems to be there for its own sake. Still, when this film works, it's really fascinating. The "Maybe God figured we was getting too big for our britches" sequence is brilliant and chilling. And the scenes with Richard Liberty as Dr. Logan interacting with the docile zombie Bub are unforgettable. Howard Sherman's Bub is, oddly, the most human character here, and he brings this film the heart that it desperately needs.
Unfortunately, the Fun Factor is largely missing from this installment, and that's the main reason to watch horror films. Besides being scared, that is.
Best Scare: When Bub says hello to his Aunt Elisha.
Who I'd Recommend It To: Strong-stomached zombie fans.
Posted: July 1st, 2002

The tyranist's thoughts
Number three in a great series of movies. It has tons of over-the-top gore and some way cool death effects. I wish I knew how they did some of them. The total lack of people is very disturbing. In fact, it disturbed me more than most post-apocalyptic they're-all-dead movies.
Since I like to consider things in the context of the series in which they occur, Day of the Dead seems to me to continue the downward spiral that is George Romero's mankind very nicely. By the time his zombie timeline has gotten this far a lot of things have happened that make mankind's future look very bleak. First, after the first twenty minutes there isn't a single new character introduced that isn't a zombie. I take this to show that we can't pretend that somewhere, there is a colony of survivors that we just don't know about. Second, the male humans outnumber the females like 15 to 1 (I forgot to actually count). Therefore reproduction isn't going to happen very fast. To restart an entire race with only one reproductively functioning couple isn't going to happen very fast. And that is only if they avoid the zombies for long enough. Last, there is a very deliberate sense of gloom that is present in the movie. There are enormous tensions between the remaining humans. These things point to a kind of depressed human psyche. A condition that will probably have to be alleviated before any kind of recovery could begin.
The rumours of a fourth installment have been around since this one was released, but I kind of think that Romero's timeline has probably run out shortly after Day of the Dead.