Day of the Dead (1985)

Written by CinemaSerf on May 7, 2024

We learn pretty quickly that the world has been zombified and that scientist "Sarah" (Lori Cardille) might be part of the last dozen or so people left in the world who still prefer their food cooked! They use an helicopter to get about the place then take refuge deep underground in a military bunker run by the slightly maniacal "Rhodes" (Joseph Pilato). It's fair to say that there's quite a degree of tension amongst these survivors. The military element is asserting itself over the folks who are trying to find a cause for and solution to the plague on the surface. Things come to an head with "Prof Logan" (Richard Liberty) takes his experiments trying to re-humanise these creatures just one step too far for the heavily armed soldiers, and a deadly split occurs that could spell doom for everyone! Now the acting here is pretty terrible, and the writing does little to help with that but George Romero does well to create an increasing sense of claustrophobic menace as tempers fray and the human beings factionalise into groups more dangerous to each other than their topside terrors. It's the last half hour than enlivens this, though, as the civilian conclude that they need to get airborne and head for a quiet Caribbean beach. The plot is a little more sophisticated, there is the semblance of science here, but essentially it's all about hordes of marauding corpses - I'm sure I saw a tutu-clad ballet dancer amongst them - bent of a bit of gobbling. Even when the odds are stacked against people, they can still find reasons not to trust each other!