Whaddayaknow — George A. Romero wrote and directed another zombie film! And I’ve rated it as Yellow Puss.
What’s the significance of Day Of the Dead? I’m still trying to figure that out myself. Heck, 30 minutes into the film I asked “Where’s this film going?” After an hour and thirty-seven minutes I asked myself that again and then the credits started rolling.
- Music that was used in Shaun Of The Dead, which SOTD did intentionally drawing from a number of Z-films to pay homage to their predecessors
- Yelling “Hello?” that sounds like the same delivery I first heard in 28 Days Later and suspect that Day Of The Dead was the original
Experiments with cognizant zombies – most notable in the film is “Bub”, a male zombie who at a base level shows memory of things from when he was a human (ex applying a disposable razor to his face for shaving)- In some cases over-the-top campy acting, which can be characteristic of B/Z-films, but in this case struck me as poor acting &/or directing choices. I think the film could have had better execution & resonance in the same scenes (ALTHOUGH I NOTE – it was only the military AKA government characters that acted in this ‘ridiculous’ way, which may start to make some sense when you understand that this is supposed to be representative of a conflict between the public and the government.)
- Questionably gay straight guy or straight gay guy
Oldest private in history, Private Steele – so did he join late, has this zombie conflict been going on that long and there was no one around to promote him, or is that he joined young and remained a career private?- Better make up and effects than Dawn Of The Dead
- Instead of being held up in a shopping mall (Dawn Of The Dead) with a helicopter they’re holed up in an underground facility of some sort with a helicopter
I happened to have a collector’s edition of this film when I viewed it, so I also had all the extras — including the ‘interviews with the cast members X#-of-years later’ AKA ‘today’. One of the things said (by Romero) was that the two parties of people in this film — scientists & military — stuck in the underground bunker was meant to represent the public and the government of the time (mid-1980s) and how there was a distrust between the two.
Perhaps this film had that significance then (in 1985) but viewing it in 2017 it has no staying power.
This film could probably be good with a re-write & re-make, not unlike how Total Recall was grossly improved.
