Fancy Clown
Member
The first time I saw Day of the Dead I was probably about ten years old. In other words, probably too young. Memories of Dawn of the Dead putting me on my parents floor at night were still fresh in my mind, but I always had a thing for the macabre, so I felt compelled to finish what I had started.
I don't remember much of my first experience with Day of the Dead, other than that it had a lovable zombie named Bub, was pretty depressing, and that seeing this:
while eating a bowl of this:
Put me off chili for months.
Overall, though, what I really remembered about the film was that I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as Night or Dawn. It was a mean, ugly, dark film, and had a hell of a lot of talking in it for a zombie movie.
Recently, I had the urge to revisit the film, thanks to its badass cover art on Netflix:
I'm glad I ended up rewatching the film, because it's a damn fine zombie flick. Certainly not as tightly crafted a film as Night, and it lacks the character and sheer imaginative scope of Dawn, but it has a lot going for it in its own right.
For starters, the beginning of the film is absolutely great. It kicks of with an absolutely killer nightmare sequence, with this gem of a jump scare:
And then it continues in a bleak, zombie filled romp through florida. The soundtrack has some really fantastic moments, as does the sound design in general. The Gorillaz seem to think so as well, considering they used music and audio from the opening sequence for this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElFlaWfx7LU (as well as a few of their others).
I think the biggest things going against Day is its pacing, choice of location, and characters. It's a slow movie. There are a lot of really long scenes of people talking in a dank, uniformly grey, underground bunker. That's not to say there aren't plenty of entertaining moments though, as the characters--particularly the miliary members--are totally hammy stereotypes. But...they're also thoroughly unlikeable, apart from the charming, "but still not as likeable as Dawn's characters" obvious good guys. They're just too broad to carry any sort of engaging dialogue, despite their amusing/obnoxious scenery chewing. But Bub makes up for them all, that magnificent bastard!
But I suppose the film is not complicated one, and doesn't demand complicated characters. Where Dawn was a social commentary on consumerism, Day has a simple message. In fact, it has probably the simplest message you could possibly have: treat others the way you want to be treated. The dead may be at the characters' walls, but if you throw civility out the window, then humans are just as bad--if not worse--than the flesh eaters themselves.
The pacing and location issues do hold the film back, but they are made up for in other areas. The bunker complex offers a drab color palette, but Romero and his DP actually managed to make a rather handsome film out if, with a ton of memorable shots, and they even play with some cool colored lighting in the caves towards the end. The framing is quite good at times too, whether its a decapitated zombie head blinking in the foreground while the protagonists flee out of focus, or the shadow of an undead's outstretched arm clutches out against a characters chest.
As for the pacing, well, let's just say its worth it for the climax:
It's glorious. There's tons of amazing gore effects, creative (well deserved) character deaths, and memorable zombies (clown zombie!), and and tense zombie action. It's utterly cathartic, and a concentrated dose of everything great in a zombie film.
The movie's far from perfect, but I feel it is sorely underrated (even though until now I was a part of the problem). If you ever find yourself trapped in a zombie apocalypse with nothing to do, you could do worse than giving this movie a watch.
Thanks for reading!
