DAY OF THE DEAD (1985)

Romero's new `Dead' has little life

Houston Chronicle - November 26, 1985

Author: BRUCE WESTBROOK, Staff

Should we be grateful that George Romero has returned his dead once again?

Not really. "Day of the Dead," the director's third walking-corpse film, lacks the cut-rate charm and stylistic audacity of his first, 1968's "Night of the Living Dead," and the brash action and allegory of his second, '79's "Dawn of the Dead," whose shopping-mall siege by Romero's incredibly mixed up zombies was arguably a metaphor for mindless consumerism.

Day offers little in the way of such social commentary, nor is there even very much horror , save for the state-of-the-art effects and makeup work.

Longtime Romero colleague Tom Savini has again created some smashing "special makeup effects" (as the credit goes) that are ideal for the kind of horror fans who read Fangoria magazine and pore over stills of stiffs.

Thanks to Savini's art of illusion and knack for hacking, arms are chopped off with less than surgical precision, heads are ripped from torsos in mid-scream, and disembowelments leave a sloppy, juicy trail of entrails.

In short, there's plenty of the kind of gory gut-spilling that would earn any film an X rating - provided, of course, it was submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America.

But Romero - like the makers of the recent "Re-Animator - " ignored the MPAA, thereby sidestepping the problem of theaters who decline to show X movies and newspapers who refuse to run X-movie ads.

As a guide, that leaves consumers with reviewers, and this one's verdict is: Even adult audiences should steer clear.

Romero's plot (he also wrote the script) involves a small band of humans holed up in an underground complex somewhere in sunlit Florida (he must have wearied of his home state of Pennsylvania). The zombie plague initiated in the first film has spread. Except for the 12 or so survivors, the only ambulatory creatures in sight are in advanced stages of decomposition and hungry for living flesh.

These lurching, pitiful parodies of people are the true stars of any "Dead" film, but we don't see much of them for "Day's" first two-thirds, during which the survivors - a volatile mix of military and scientific types - are constantly fighting among themselves. Their dialogue is unrelentingly - and dully - macho and profane, and their acting is full of strident screaming and gnashing of teeth.

It's all mean-natured, mindless stuff, evoking little interest in or sympathy for the characters. An exception is Terry Alexander, another efficient, cool-headed black in the mold of Duane Jones from "Night of the Living Dead." And Lori Cardille, the camp's sole female, scores some points as a sensible alternative to the men's violent posturing.

There's also a feeble subplot about domesticating the zombies, but none of it really matters until the end. That's when Romero - as if to say, "Let's party" - finally cranks up the action.

From then on, it isn't bad - as far as these things go. With 500 pounds of barbecued turkey legs standing in for human flesh, Romero and Savini again show their mastery of the horror -movie gross-out. But that's about all their new movie has to offer.

The pity is that Romero didn't try to camp it up a bit. Earlier this year, "Return of the Living Dead" - a related film but one he didn't make - achieved some high comedy with the same kind of low elements. And we know Romero can handle humor, as demonstrated by "Creepshow," his collaboration with Stephen King.

But "Day of the Dead" is just that - dead.

That's not to say inert - the action quota is high enough to satisfy the patient. But there's little sense of drama or adventurousness to spark it - and certainly no subtlety - so that overall, "Day of the Dead" seems much like one of Romero's shambling zombies: plodding, predictable and fit to be buried and forgotten.
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'THE DEAD' RETURN

Miami Herald, The (FL) - November 5, 1985

Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic

From Night of the Living Dead through Dawn of the Dead and now, to the concluding eruption of George Romero's gore trilogy, Day of the Dead, Romero has kept audiences off-balance. His zombie jamborees are so gruesome, and Romero keeps up on the latest in splatter-effects techniques so devotedly, that one is tempted to dismiss them as the very worst of a bad lot. After all, dismemberment is a limited form, and explicit gore hard to redeem.

But one may not dismiss Romero or his trilogy, because there has always been a filmmaking intelligence behind the work. This is as true of Day of the Dead as it was of Night and Dawn. And though Romero seems unlikely ever to reach the black-comic heights of Dawn, in which waves of zombies descended on a suburban shopping mall in answer to some sort of deep-seated genetic call, Day of the Dead has its moments of narrative depth.

By Day, the zombies who were first seen in scattered packs in the Pennsylvania countryside in Night have all but taken over the world. The principal survivors are holed up somewhere in southern Florida, where a detachment of troops uneasily coexists with a small group of scientists working on a living- dead cure. As usual, Romero has a metaphor handy: One of the scientists, whom the soldiers refer to with murderous disdain as "Dr. Frankenstein," has been vivisecting some of the zombies and attempting to train others as ghastly pets.

It's not subtle, this business, but compared to the desultory attempts at subtexts found in most contemporary horror films, it amounts to High Theme. It also provides comic relief -- what else to do but laugh when Frankenstein's great achievement turns out to be feeding his zombie without losing any fingers? -- as well as establishing the films' first sympathetic walking dead, a spaniel-eyed giant played marvelously by Howard Sherman.

As is traditional, such fooling where man is not meant to fool must bring judgment down on Frankenstein as well as on the loutish soldiers who threaten his work. Eventually, since this is Romero and these are his Dead, Day becomes a bloodbath of epic proportions. Tom Savini, a special makeup-effects craftsman, manages to move the state of the art another revolting step "forward," and Day of the Dead offers what are easily the screen's most graphic decapitations and disembowelings. Those with the stomach for it will find in this film revelations concerning special effects: They are astonishing.

But strong stomachs are called for. Romero does not cut away. He is not shy, and though Day of the Dead is the best performed and best written of the three films, and is clearly the work of a serious filmmaker, it is not for the unwary. Romero makes you pay for that theme. He must be approached by novices in the way that timid eaters approach a Japanese restaurant -- very, very carefully.

Day of the Dead (U) ** 1/2

CAST: Lori Cardille, Joseph Pilato, Richard Liberty, Terry Alexander, Howard Sherman, G. Howard Klar.

CREDITS: Director: George Romero. Producer: Richard P. Rubinstein. Screenwriter: George Romero. Cinematographer: Michael Gornick. Music: John Harrison.

A United Film Distribution release. Running time: 102 minutes. Vulgar language, much violence and gore.

**** Excellent *** 1/2 Very Good

*** Good ** 1/2 Worth Seeing ** Fair

* Poor Zero: Worthless
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'DEAD' SETS NEW STANDARDS FOR GORE

San Jose Mercury News (CA) - October 7, 1985

Author: GLENN LOVELL, Mercury News Film Writer

He's Heeeeere. That's Right. Pittsburgh's own George A. Romero is back with his latest zombie jamboree, "Day of the Dead." And as anyone who has squirmed and gagged through parts 1 and 2 of the filmmaker's "Living Dead" trilogy can vouch, we're talking state-of-the-art gore effects here.

So what's the big deal? You've already braved the chest- bursting in "Alien" and the flesh-eating in last summer's campy "Return of the Living Dead." After these splatterfests, what can be so terrible?

Obviously you've forgotten what a wacked-out original Romero is. He turned "Dawn" into an outrageous satire on consumerism gone amok (with zombies going through reflex motions in a shopping mall), and he has again confounded all expectations and -- for what it's worth -- set grisly new standards for the much-maligned genre.

''Day" may have fewer picnicking zombies than "Night" or "Dawn," but the ones that have made it to the screen are ghastly beyond words. I can well imagine morgue attendants' knees turning to jelly at the sight of Romero and makeup artist Tom ("Creepshow") Savini's latest descent into Living Dead purgatory.

This warning tendered, I can now go on to proclaim "Day" as Romero's most sophisticated and effective fright tale yet. Like everything else the independent filmmaker has done, "Day" cooks on at least three levels -- as grim chiller, rude black comedy and an almost-poignant comment on our desensitization.

''Day" also reminds us that Romero is our bravest and most talented horror specialist, which is obviously why no less an expert in the macabre than Stephen King has been a longtime champion and collaborator. (Romero's new project may be an adaptation of King's "Pet Semetary.")

''Day" picks up where "Dawn" (1979) breaks off: with a small group of people in a helicopter looking for sanctuary from the living dead, which have now taken over all the cities. The not-so-lucky survivors are based in a missile silo somewhere in Florida. The irony, of course, is that the corpses drool and drag themselves through the glorious daylight topside while the living bury themselves for protection.

It's in the clammy, cavernlike setting that 12 humans fight among themselves and attempt to find a cure for the plague above. The medical research team is led by a tough scientist (Lori Cardille) and a crazed "Dr. Frankenstein" (Richard Liberty) who wants to "civilize" and domesticate the zombies like cattle.

What's left of the military contingent takes orders from a psycho named Rhodes (Romeo regular Joseph Pilato). A third group, represented by the seemingly passive Jamaican copter pilot (Terry Alexander), favors an escape to paradise, wherever that may be.

As in Howard Hawks' classic "The Thing," the chief conflict here is between knowledge (learn from the zombies) and brute force (blast the buggers to kingdom come). Unlike Hawks, who favored the quick military solution, Romero advocates a mix of humanity and scientific common sense, represented (again, ironically) by the two historically persecuted factions -- the female scientist and the black pilot.

As for egghead "Frankenstein," he's down in his blood- splattered chamber of horrors attempting to recondition a zombie he has affectionately nicknamed "Bub" (Howard Sherman). The scenes of this pathetic thing struggling to remember its human past -- and such trivial pursuits as shaving and saluting an officer -- contain a pathos not usually associated with Romero.

If any of this makes sense to you -- and, indeed, if you're able to peer beyond the appalling carnage to what is, in essence, a primitive allegory/morality tale -- edge very cautiously toward the dark of "Day."

The more literal-minded are warned to keep away. All they will find are horrors beyond description, a Hades on Earth beyond anything Dante imagined.

DAY OF THE DEAD. Written, directed by George A. Romero. No MPAA rating (but gets an R -- under 17 not admitted unless accompanied by adult). (star)(star)(star)
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'DAY OF DEAD' FAILS TO FRIGHTEN

Boston Globe - August 23, 1985

Author: Michael Blowen, Globe Staff

Writer-director George Romero must think the audience for his "Dead" pictures is as zombified as

the creatures who inhabit his so-called horror pictures. That's the only excuse for the vile "Day of the Dead" - one of the most rediculously acted, poorly written and stagnantly directed movies of the year.

Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), a black-and-white cult film that introduced the director's wry sense of social satire, was followed by "Dawn of the Dead" (1979), a gory parody of America's shopping-mall mentality. Now, it's "Day of the Dead," and the sun is no longer shining on the cultish director. It's as if he has fallen victim to his own creations and is simply going through the mechanical motions.

This time a handful of humans, surrounded by voracious zombies, are stuck in a Florida compound that looks like an abandoned missile silo. Sarah, portrayed by Lori Cardille, a woman whose voice is the equivalent of an eternal auto alarm, is trying to save her life, and those of her crew. That's the story.

Humor and horror , the ingredients that made the first two "Dead" films successful, are virtually absent from this third and, I hope, final episode. Instead of creating frightening moments of zombies screeching at the screen or satirical asides about the mind-set that led the world into zombieland, Romero seems fixated completely on the gore. After watching the creatures disembowel, decapitate and disgorge a few victims, disgust is the only emotion left. In fact, Romero's sets are beginning to look more like meat-packing factories after a hard day's work than real locations.

Even for fans of the genre, "Day of the Dead" has absolutely no frightening moments. Maybe the only thing that can really kill zombies is if they die at the box office.
Caption: PHOTO

Memo: MOVIE REVIEW DAY OF THE DEAD - Written and directed by George A.

Romero, produced by Richard P. Rubenstein, starring Lori

Cardille, Terry Alexander and Joseph Pilato, at the Pi

Alley and suburban cinemas, rated R (vulgar language and

extensive violence).
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FILM: THE GORE KEEPS COMING

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - July 20, 1985

Author: Desmond Ryan, Inquirer Movie Critic
At least cult goreographer George Romero gives the customers fair and early warning that a strong stomach and perhaps a brown paper bag are prerequisites for making it through Day of the Dead. My quarrel is with the way he does it.

A zombie lies on an autopsy table with his stomach removed and his entrails spilling onto the floor. Later on, lest you missed this cautionary sign, a woman sees her lover bid an abrupt farewell to his vital organs.

And there is far more to come. Some of the entrails for Day of the Dead, which is the finest movie yet made in Wampum, Pa., came from the local slaughterhouse. Much of the film looks as if it were shot there.

Given all this blood slinging, it's understandable that the characters do a lot of drinking and cursing. After all, they're the ones who have to read Romero's script, and it gives most of them the opportunity to inspect their livers firsthand for damage. (They're lying on the floor, next to the heads.)

But Romero's fans wouldn't have it any other way. Day of the Dead resumes the series that began in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead. Romero shot that film for $114,000 and laughed all the way to the blood bank as it quickly became a cult favorite for its combination of gruesome horror and humor.

The Pittsburgh filmmaker followed it up a decade later with Dawn of the Dead. The same conflict between zombies who still have their stomachs and humans who decline to be the entree was staged in an abandoned shopping mall. Some critics claimed to find a satiric intention, but all I saw was a beheading, cannibalism and a general pandering to the zombies who get their kicks watching graphic murders.

Day of the Dead has something of a split personality and why not? Everything else gets cut up in the movie. Romero, essentially repeating the ideas of the first two movies, has tried to inject a debate between soldiers and scientists. He has also included a generous amount of humor, whose purpose strikes me as more of an attempt to reassure the audience than to elevate the film.

The leader of the soldiers makes Rambo look like a wimp, and there are good scientists and bad scientists. They are all stuck in a missile silo (actually a limestone mine where, in real life, the good burghers of Wampum park their trailers and boats). Up above, roaming outside, are the zombies.

In that early-warning scene, the bad scientist is examining a zombie to discover what makes him tick, an experiment that could well be extended to people who like watching this kind of thing. In a sly, inside joke, Romero seeks to revive the zombie's memory of the good old days by giving him a copy of Salem's Lot, written by that other well-known horror conglomerate, Stephen King. Romero and King collaborated on Creepshow in 1982, and the director's schedule is clogged with future productions of the author's novels.

The scientist is a man who keeps his head when all about him are losing theirs, and he is known in some of the more snide corners of the silo as Dr. Frankenstein. But it is left to him to give the definitive opinion of Day of the Dead in what amounts to another warning to the audience.

Rounding upon the recalcitrant zombie, he says, "That wasn't very nice, you know. Not nice at all. You can just sit there in the dark."

Or you can shake your head in incredulity and walk out of the theater.

DAY OF THE DEAD *

Produced by Richard P. Rubinstein, directed and written by George A. Romero, photography by Michael Gornick, music by John Harrison, distributed by United Film Distribution Co..

Running time: 1 hour, 42 mins.

Sarah - Lori Cardille

John - Terry Alexander

Rhodes - Joseph Pilato

Dr. Logan - Richard Liberty

Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (extreme violence and gore, profanity)