trudel@topaz.ARPA (Jonathan D.) (07/08/85)
*REPLACE THIS MESSAGE WITH YOUR MESSAGE*
DAY OF THE DEAD
Review by Jonathan D. Trudel
I recently had the displeasure of watching this long-awaited sequel to
two cult favorites-Night of the Living Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. This
movie starts off at a similar point in time as DotD, but does not have the
same characters as DotD did.
{Begin Teaser-Spoiler follows later}
For those of you not familiar with the "___Dead" series, imagine if you
will today's world turned upside down. For some unknown reason, all the
people that die become zombies that have a hankering for human flesh. These
movies have the lead protagonists trying to keep themselves alive by
whatever means possible, whether it be by barricading themselves inside a
shopping mall, or an old missle silo, as in the case of Day of the Dead.
Anyhow, in Day of the Dead, the zombies now populate the world(?), and
humans are an endangered species. The US government set up a research
facuility that was supposed to find a way to stop the menace, but things
don't go as planned...
{Begin Spoiler}
Well, let me tell you that this reviewer did not expect to see any great work
of cinematic art when this reviewer went to this film. Actually, he expected
to see Grade B all the way, but it never got that good. The plotline was
simple enough, with the researchers supposedly working on ways to stop the
zombies from killing the rest of humanity. There are only about 12 people in
the complex at the time of the film, so the old adage 'too little, too late'
still holds. The researchers are too underequipped, and understaffed to
produce any sort of results. They have lost contact with the government,
and are trying to find a solution. There are two scientists working in
different ways: one ('Dr. Frankenstein', so dubbed for his experiments,
whose name is the only one that comes to mind) is trying to condition the
zombies to stop eating people by re-teaching them the 'culture' they left
behind when they died, where the other (the only female survivor, BTW) is
supposed to be working on a way to reverse the zombitizing process. All is
good and well (as good and well as can be, given the situation), until the
leader of the military detachment dies (which happens at the beginning of the
film). So, his second-in-command takes over, and demands to see some results
from the scientists, or else there will be hell to pay (so to speak).
Eventually, tempers flare due to an unfortunate accident, and the zombies
enter the complex and start their 'attack'. The reviewer won't reveal the
final outcome, but if you see the film, you can probably guess what happens.
Ah yes, one other thing about these "___Dead" films: Gore {with a capital
'g' nonetheless :-)}. These films have a lot of it, and they don't spare you
from any of it. You see it all, from amputations to cannibalism of live
subjects. Pretty gruesome stuff, but those who go to these movies generally
expect it. More on this later.
So, those "___Dead" fans must now be asking themselves "So, how does it
stack up against the previous films?" Well, in all honesty, this reviewer
preferred Dawn of the Dead. in Day of the Dead, the reviewer wanted more.
This reviewer kept asking itself why they didn't show much of the actual
research (except for some semi-humorous tirades with 'Bub', the intelligent
zombie). This film had a dark cloud hanging over it, one that said humanity
will not go out with a bang, but with a wimper, something that was apparent
in Dawn of the Dead, but not as emphasized. Dawn of the Dead toyed with us,
hitting a soft spot/curious vein in all of us by showing what life could be
like if a handful of people had free reign over a whole shopping mall. Day of
the Dead, however, did not strike any familiar chords in this reviewer's heart
(yes, it has one).
"But," you say, "this is not why I would go to see Day of the Dead. I go to
see action, blood and guts." Well, all this reviewer can say is that the
special effects are not up to the par they were in Dawn of the Dead. There
are a few 'maulings' that are very fake {the victims' heads are poorly
positioned w/r/to from their 'bodies', the 'skin' looked unreal, spleens don't
really go splurt like that :-), etc.}. What was more bothersome than
the special effects was the crowd. The average age was under 20, and
most of them were applauding the violence, and were even screaming for
more. It was all rather senseless, but this reviewer guesses that that's
why they went to see it. This movie was in the making for a few years, and
it should have been better as a result. On an overall scale of 1 to 10 (10
being highest), Day of the Dead rates a 3. On the trudel* scale of
go-see-it-for-yourself-anyway-no-matter-what-the-reviewer-says, it rates
a 5.
* Denotes a patent pending (to protect to innocent from prosecution)gnome@olivee.UUCP (Gary Traveis) (07/10/85)
That movie sounds pretty bad -- but I wanted to quickly add that there will be Yet Another Dead Movie coming out soon that looks like a pretty funny satire of the whole Dead scene. It's called _Return_of_the_Dead_ and (I think) includes Dan Obannon among the people who put it together. You see, there are these punks in this graveyard... and well, uhm I guess I should not go into any detail right now. Just thought I'd let you know. Gary