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Finally, the zombies have overtaken the earth. Humans by now are scarce
& it might be that the last survivors of the human race are living in
an underground research lab that is shared by a bunch of scientists &
a bunch of soldiers - a dynamite constellation - & sparks fly even
there. While the scientists are either trying to domesticate the zombies
- like doctor Frankentstein Logan (Richard Liberty), who enjoys to
both take zombies apart &/or teach them tricks tht would prove their
(rudimentary) intelligence -, or trying to reverse the zombifiction
process - like tough-as-nails Sarah (Lori Cardille) - the army-guys, led
by ruthless commander Rhodes (Joseph Pilato) would much rather like to
blow them all away (despite their extremely limited ammonition), but is
reduced to catch specimens for the scientists. Caught between these 2
fractions are alcoholic communications expert Bill (Jarlath Conroy) &
pot-smoking helicopter pilot John (Terry Alexander). The situation of
course is extremely tense, but it completely goes out of hand when 2
soldiers die at a zombie-catching expedition & a third one, Miguel
(Anthony Dileo jr) is bitten by a zombie,so the bad militar4y wants to
shoot him, but Sarah, Miguel's former lover, saves his life. As if that
wasn't enough, Rhodes & Sarah find out (independently, but at the same
time), at the same time, that doc Logan has been giving his favourite
zombie Bub (Sherman Howard) pieces of the soldiers who have just died as
reward. This drives Rhodes totally over the edge, & he pumps doc
Logan's body full of lead, shoots another of the scientists (John Amplas)
in the head & forces Sarah & Bill into a zombie-infested mine. He
only keeps John (you need a helicopter pilot, don't you), but John soon
overcomes him & follows Sarah & Billy into the mine with
sufficient arsenal. ... what Rhodes didn't know though was that Miguel
has since let a vast group of zombies in through the main gate (don't ask
me why), so the zombie-infested cave is by now the safest place of the
whole compound ... & it's not very safe. Consequently all the soldiers
are ripped apart by the zombies, & Rhodes himself is shot dead by
resident zombie Bub (who has since learned how to use a gun), while Sarah,
Bill & John make it through the mine & to the helicopter, in which
they fly to one of these desert pacific islands ... George
A.Romero's 2 previous zombie mobies were both milestones of the whole
modern-zombie-subgenre in their own right, Night
of the Living Dead (1968) because it single-handedly started the
genre & laid down its ground rules, Dawn
of the Dead (1978) because it kicked off the wave of
late-1970's/early 1980's zombietrend, also singlehandedly (for better or
worse, but it has to be stated, Dawn
of the Dead showed way more sophistication than any of its
rip-offs). When Day of the Dead came in 1985, the genre did show
definite signs of wear & the menace of slow-walking dead people, who
might or might not be a metaphor for sheeplike masses, has lost its
freshness. So - like in Night
of the Living Dead - Romero tries to focus on the psychological
drama(s) of those menaced ... but unfortunately this time around his
treatment of characters in distress stays a bit stale - only rarely do the
characters escape being stereotypes, it's clear from the beginning who are
the good guys, who are the bad guys, who's the mad scientist & who is
going to survive, who'll die and when ... That's not to say Day of
the Dead is an all-bad movie, it's still way better & definitely
more interesting & orignal than the legion of zombie-films made
primarily in Italy (which are enjoyable on a quite different level
though), it's just nowhere up there with Romero's previous zombie-efforts,
and - regardless if you see it as just another genre entry, an effort to
innovate the genre, a political message movie or whatever alse - a rather
futile exercise. All that said, it does hold a certain entertainment
value.
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