George Romero's Haunting Vision Of Humanity's End Can Now Be Seen In 4K
The day is finally here.
From the moment filmmakers realized that cameras could be used to create fictional worlds, they've been finding unique ways to destroy them. Between older works like Dr. Strangelove and the original Planet of the Apes, and newer examples of the genre like Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and the Quiet Place movies, there's always something eerie about seeing different visions of what humanity’s end might look like, and what they reveal about the human condition. Nuclear annihilation, worldwide contagions, alien invaders, global warming, the simple consequences of our worst behaviors – at this point, you could throw a dart at a board of nightmare scenarios and find a rich history of movies exploring the idea.
The zombie apocalypse is one of the most ubiquitous, persistent, and horrific ways cinema has envisioned us going out, despite being one of the newest. The term comes from Haitian Vodou, where a zombie is a mindless slave created with magic — it wasn’t until George A. Romero reinvented the concept with Night of the Living Dead (a movie that, ironically, never uses the word zombie) in 1968 that the modern idea of zombies as reanimated, flesh-eating corpses entered pop culture. Not content with just being the creator of the subgenre, Romero built his own apocalyptic canon, depicting the beginning of the infection in Night, the slow societal decay it caused in Dawn of the Dead, and the inevitable, final death toll of human civilization with 1985’s Day of the Dead, which now has a new 4K Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory.
How Was Day of the Dead Initially Received?
With two acclaimed entries already laying the groundwork for the Living Dead franchise, Day of the Dead was initially envisioned as a sprawling epic, described by Romero as “the Gone with the Wind of zombie films.” However, artistic differences with investors caused the film’s budget to be slashed in half to just $3.5 million. This resulted in five different scripts being written, with the original’s first draft clocking in at 200 pages and dwindling from there. The final draft was a drastically retooled story, a bleak chamber piece depicting the ideological (and eventually literal) conflict between a team of scientists searching for a cure for the zombie virus and the small squad of American jarheads tasked with surveilling and protecting them.
When the film arrived in theaters on July 19, 1985, it was a modest box-office success (grossing $34 million) but a disappointment compared to the previous two films. It was also a disappointment to many critics, including Roger Ebert (an ardent fan of Romero’s previous efforts), who complained about the “overacting” in the film, as well as the human cast, who he described as “mostly unpleasant, violent, insane, or so noble that we can predict with utter certainty that they will survive.” Among both critics and audiences, one of the biggest complaints was the pacing and the subdued circumstances — to fans of the intense survivalist thrills of Night and the action-horror energy of Dawn, the slow-building tension and political introspection of Day of the Dead was just kinda boring.
Despite the thousands of zombies roaming above ground, most of Day of the Dead’s runtime is reserved for the intellectual conflict between science and militarism.
Why Is Day of the Dead Important To See Now?
Like the best apocalypse films, Day of the Dead uses an implausible but terrifying future to plumb the depths of our current social ailments. Day was written and released during the height of the Cold War, a time when everyone across America and the globe had the threat of mutually assured destruction lurking at the back of their mind.
That atmosphere of inescapable doom permeates the film: the streets are devoid of life, replaced with the unceasing shuffle of undead feet, and the claustrophobic military bunker feels more like a mausoleum than the refuge of humanity’s last hope. Our heroes — scientist Sarah Bowman (Lori Cardille), pilot John aka “Flyboy” (Terry Alexander), and radio operator and resident drunk Bill McDermott (Jariath Conroy) — try to remain optimistic about their odds, but you can see their resolve weaken as the days pass and the total silence of the outside world slowly smothers their hopes.
It’s a feeling that can apply to modern existential dread, with climate change looming and the drumbeat of perpetual international conflict in the distance. The presence of the military is a crucial aspect of the film’s suspense, and for good reason — Day of the Dead is an insightful look at what happens when an institution predicated on power and sanctioned violence suddenly finds itself in the driver's seat after the broken institutions upholding society have collapsed. There’s a flailing, boisterous panic in the eyes of Captain Henry Rhodes (a perfectly theatrical Joseph Pilato) and the rest of his racist, fascistic military crew that can be likened to the desperate attempts to maintain control of dictators throughout history. Their actions are irrational and often plainly stupid, but even at the end of the world, a man with a gun and a uniform can justify any depraved acts to themselves with their own authority.
Joseph Pilato’s turn as the sadistic Captain Rhodes is far more villainous than the flesh-eating mob outside.
Of course, the human drama is only one side of a zombie movie, and Day of the Dead is the pinnacle of Romero’s hyper-specific approach to the zombie horde as a primitive social structure with its own personality. There’s so much visible history in the collection of undead bodies on screen, as zombie extras wear clown outfits, football gear, biker vests, and hospital gowns. Individual thought is put into all of them, and seeing the disparate collective imparts the eerie feeling of witnessing the civilian death toll of some military conflict, as hundreds of human lives are frozen in the moment of their demise. Day also introduces one of the most fascinating zombies in the subgenre’s history: Bub, a flesh-eater taught by the crazed Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty) to hold a book, listen to music, and even how to shoot a gun and perform a military salute, in the film’s most heavy-handed depiction of the mindless subservience of footsoldiers.
The zombies’ idiosyncratic, discolored look was handled by a special effects team helmed by industry legend Tom Savini and supported by future experts Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, who would tackle zombies again in The Walking Dead. Their SFX expertise isn’t just reserved for the zombies but also their victims, who are torn apart and dissected in ways that feel disturbingly similar to the horrors inflicted on the human body during battle, a continuation of a thematic thread that began with Night of the Living Dead’s subtle reflections on the carnage of Vietnam.
Most zombies in other films don’t have nearly as much personality as Bub.
What Special Features Does The New Shout Factory 4K Have?
Alongside the massive upgrade offered by this version’s full 4K restoration, the Shout! Factory four-disc set comes with a horde of new special features. These include two different commentaries, one from author Daniel Kraus and film critic Drew McWeeny, and one from Romero, SFX artist Tom Savini, production designer Cletus Anderson, and lead actress Lori Cardille. There are also multiple interviews with key creatives, including Cardille, composer John Harrison, 2nd-unit cameraman Ernest Dickerson (Spike Lee’s one-time go-to cinematographer and an accomplished filmmaker in his own right), and Romero’s filmmaking daughter, Tina Romero, among others.
If that wasn’t enough, there are also several behind-the-scenes featurettes about different aspects of the filmmaking process, a feature-length documentary about the film’s production called World’s End: The Legacy of Day of the Dead, and archival goodies like the movie’s original trailers. For a movie over four decades old, Shout! Factory went all in on including supplemental features that allow viewers to dive deep into the making of Romero’s original trilogy-ender, which speaks to the transformation of the film’s reputation from a relative disappointment to one of the best zombie films of all time.
