SCORETOBER!!!! Day 25 Day of the Dead!!!

Day 25

Day of the Dead

Of the original Romero zombie trilogy, this is my favorite.

Each one dealt a less hopeful outcome for humanity, and it showed a lot of truths in people that comics and shows like The Walking Dead point out now.

During Night of the living dead the world fell into chaos. People were giving over to fear as the dead were coming back to life. People turned on one another for the sake of staying alive, and killed without hesitation in blind fear.

By the time Dawn of the Dead rolled around, people were living in madness. You had no law, people doing as they pleased. Murdering without consequence, and in the mix, people trying to find a sense of normalcy. They tried clinging to the hope that somehow they could make it, and survive. But people were our own undoing. People riding out the chaos as an excuse to watch the world burn over powered the people holding out for some thread of sanity.

And Day of the Dead. That’s when hope had died. The world was dead, and everyone realizes we screwed ourselves. There’s no chance of surviving and this world returning to normal. The people trying to find some straw to grasp and try to gain some ground or semblance of power in the right direction. Were growing fewer, and everyone else saying fuck the world were growing in numbers. It became less about returning to normalcy and more about surviving and living.

It's sad George never got to make his full vision for this film. Which is still close to what we got but. He had such a grander scale in mind. But working with his limitations I feel worked in his favor. There’s never a sense in one instance that felt like the humans had the upper hand. They were a dying race on a planet overrun by the dead. And somehow assholes STILL managed to live!

Well this whole movie is full of assholes of every flavor so get ready for that, and some amazing music while we’re at it. Let’s begin!

The Movie

What better way to begin a film all about the hopelessness of a future full of zombies, than with a dream sequence. In a room with no door and solid brick walls. With just a calendar as your only companion. Already this sucks. Well the dream sucks even more when you notice it says October which should be about pumpkins and happiness. But instead its about zombies and loneliness! Speaking of zombies, your dreams need to invest in better walls, because suddenly an army of zombie hands are breaking through the wall, and nearly grabbing your chest! Rude!

With that, we are beginning our adventure, as our dreamer Sarah(Lori Cardille) is startled awake from her nightmare, riding a helicopter into a city. With her is John(Terry Alexander) the helicopter pilot, Miguel(Anthony Dileo Jr.) a soldier on the edge of collapsing and losing his shit, and McDermott(Jarlath Conroy) their comms guy trying to reach any signs of life along the coast.

This group is taking a helicopter ride into a deeper part of a nearby city, searching for survivors and resources. All the find however, is a city full of the living dead. And hundreds more coming toward them. Welcome to Day of the Dead.

The group quickly reboards their helicopter and take off for the safety of their home base. Which we learn very quickly, is an underground compound. Within the compound we have the two most incompatible groups forced to live and work together. Soldiers and scientist. A dream team!

As the group return, only to report they’ve found nothing while traveling a hundred miles up and down the coast, it’s safe to say peoples spirits are a little less than high. Which is understandable when you’ve been forced to live underground and any time you spend above ground, even just to tend to your pot plants, draws more attention from the overwhelming walking dead. Yes the soldiers are tending pot plants, I mean why not? Worlds gone to shit. Might as well blaze it.

So we learn very quickly a few things. Miguel is not in any shape to be out there or anywhere with a rifle, the man needs rest or he’ll likely kill everyone. The helicopter pilot and his comms guy both need more pay and a holiday, and Sarah is the only one seeming to hold her shit together. Which would be good in a group of survivors sure. But not on a military ran underground bunker, where you have armed army guys drunk and getting high to try and keep sane while the outside world crushes in around them.

Right as the exhausted group is landing, ready to crash in their beds though, we meet Steel(Gary Howard Klar) and his best buddy in the world Rickles(Ralph Marrero) Who just so happen to be headed out on a golf cart down the compounds many tunnels on a task for the mad doctor, Dr. Logan(Richard Liberty). The doc needs these two guys to collect two more ‘specimens’ for him to work on. So Rickles and Steel were lucky enough to get picked and now need two volunteers from the returning group. Sarah we quickly learn, is dating Miguel. We learn this because she is giving a LOT more than extra care for his condition as a doctor scientist lady herself. She genuinely cares about the man and knowing his condition, and the fact these two giggly drunk soldiers are calling on his help with a dangerous job well. It doesn’t sit well with her. But our pilot and comms guy are saying F this, our job is done, so its left up to Sarah to help with gathering more specimens for the doctor to work on.

Which is a fun scene, while also showing us more of their facility.

Though I believe this would be a deal breaker for me if living underground were the best option. Apparently underground in a large open salt tunnel, because this film was shot in a huge salt mine. They have a rather small group of undead. They wrangled them from up top and brought them down there as subjects for the science team to use. So they have a little system for singling them out and collecting specimens. Once the zombo’s start coming toward them. They have a wooden perch wall with two tiny pens below. They wait for the shuffling flesh hungry horde to get close enough that they move into the single person pens. Drop a sleight down to lock them in. Secure a leash around their neck, and escort them to the lab to be chained up for the good doctor.

Which is pretty effective, I’ll give them that. But still a huge no fucking thank you when considering living down below. Because you, me, and jesus know that those bastards are eventually going to sneak out and then where will we be? Balls deep in brain hungry zombies. That’s right. But for now things are well in hand, still a hard pass though.

Things are going smoothly with collecting two zombers though. At least until Miguel begins to lose it and his muscles spasm. Dropping his zombie pole and allowing one of the captured zombies to go roaming over toward Rickle. But Sarah is a quick wit and she’s got it under control, saving the poor man, Making chubby Steel happy that his buddy is still alive. But it also means he has to threaten Miguel because he almost killed his friend. Which again is sort of understandable given friends like people now, are in very short supply.

So Sarah escorts her crazy bae to his room. Which thankfully people in this place have their own brick built solid rooms. Honestly this entire place is a great survival spot. Solid rock walls, concrete structures. It’s a good place to hold up. But also a tomb if you get in a dangerous spot.

Speaking of dangerous spots. Now we get to meet the other arm of this operation, the army guys in charge. Which have recently gone through a change in leadership as they’ve recently lost their commanding officer who was a bit more sympathetic to the scientist and doctors working with the dead. Now they are being lead by Rhodes(Joseph Pilato) a truly fun actor just absolutely digging into and enjoying the hell out of his character. A soldier now pushed in charge with the death of their commander, who has no wish what so ever to work with the science team, and is a hell of a lot more concerned with the lives of his men and surviving down there versus risking their lives with empty attempts at trying to find a solution to the zombie problem.

It's honestly a hard sell, and their mad doctor, Logan. Well. He is not helping things. The work he is doing, constant experiments to understand the zombies, what makes them work. Trying to understand how we can control them, if we can teach them. Anything to find a way we could potentially get them to stop trying to eat us, and  maybe live happily together. It’s a struggle for Sarah we quickly are piecing together, Between dealing with an unruly group of soldiers, a mad doctor working on the dead, and everyone left worrying more and more about their own survival. Even when the group meets to discuss what they’ve found, discovered, reports on supplies. The news doesn’t get any better. Communications are none existent, food is dwindling every day, the helicopter pilot wants to cut and run, the army is looking for any excuse to dump the science team and save their own asses.

So, the idea of a meeting with all of these groups in one place going anywhere but south. Well, the only high spirits are in the form of what scotch and whiskey are left.

About the only good we get from their meeting, is understanding what the scientist are working on. Sarah is apparently working on a way to reverse the zombie epidemic. Some way to stop the virus if infected, and how to change back those who have been turned. Logan on the other hand believes his work is more practical, his work is based on controlling and teaching  the zombies. But as you can imagine, in a world with short supplies, neither of them have the tools and proper facilities they need to do this work properly. But they’re gonna keep trying. It just makes it look even more hopeless, when even your own scientist have to admit the good they hope to achieve, they can’t. But they won’t admit failure even when they know its pointless. Especially when the people meant to help you, are large working against you.

It's a rough time in the world and part of why I love this movie. It’s not very happy, it’s not full of false hope. It’s giving a very dark, but very real look at the world. When everything fails us and the dominant species finds itself nearing extinction, and nothing changes. It wasn’t something they really delved into with zombie films. And we certainly didn’t have shows like The Walking Dead serving it up weekly. It’s just a nice change in films back then, especially when we move away from the arguments of the group and get glimpses of how the others live, watching it now is like watching the building blocks of what we know today as Zombie Survivalist.

A favorite scene of mine is where we have Sarah heading out to drink and relax with the pilot and communications man. The two have a prebuilt home in the caverns. It’s the weirdest thing in the film to see. A beautifully set up, cleaned and ‘home’ looking house, in the middle of a dark tunnel full of rotting machines, boats, records from congress throughout the years, movies stored in cannisters, cars! All of this left and run down, with a beautiful little trailer home in the middle. Complete with a backyard made of nice chairs, and fake plants.

It's a great scene of just pure dialog. Its Sarah and our pilot John having a discussion on why they’re here, why they keep doing what they’re doing, instead of leaving. Trying to find hope in hopelessness. The idea that if you bury yourself in work you no longer believe in, knowing your overwhelmed. You just end up putting yourself into a world of darkness you’ll never get out of.

John: We don't believe in what you're doing here, Sarah. Hey, you know what they keep down here in this cave? Man, they got the books and the records of the top 100 companies. They got the Defense Department budget down here. And they got the negatives for all your favorite movies. They got microfilm with tax return and newspaper stories. They got immigration records, census reports, and they got the accounts of all the wars and plane crashes and volcano eruptions and earthquakes and fires and floods and all the other disasters that interrupted the flow of things in the good ole U.S. of A. Now what does it matter, Sarah darling? All this filing and record keeping? We ever gonna give a shit? We even gonna get a chance to see it all? This is a great, big, 14 mile tombstone! With an epitaph on it that nobody gonna bother to read. Now, here you come. Here you come with a whole new set of charts and graphs and records. What you gonna do? Bury them down here with all the other relics of what... once... was? Let me tell you what else. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you what else. You ain't never gonna figure it out, just like they never figured out why the stars are where they're at. It ain't mankind's job to figure that stuff out. So what you're doing is a waste of time, Sarah. And time is all we got left, you know. There's plenty to do. Plenty to do, so long as there's you and me and maybe some other people. We could start over, start fresh, get some babies and teach 'em, Sarah, teach 'em never to come over here and dig these records out

I mean, it is fair…

But it’s also the job of science to find how a thing began, why it began. Understand it and how it works, why it works the way it works, and from there how to solve it. But when time is against you, and the world is collapsing around you well. Yeah. It might be a good idea to focus on surviving and trying not to repeat past mistakes. Even if it seems like you aren’t helping things. At least it means living. Right?

There’s a lot of discussions like this in the film and maybe it’s why a lot of people at the time were turned off by it. Even if the effects work is top notch, I mean there is some genuinely amazing effects in this film. Tom Savini is in top form and things look better than they have in any of the zombie films previous to this. Which believe me as much as I enjoy Dawn of the Dead, the zombies were…well they were learning.

But the movie isn’t all talk, it’s just a majority. There is SOME action at least. I mean you can’t have a zombie movie without zombies! And that means zombie action!

BUT more then that, it means introducing some cool characters and creating classic moments. Which oh yes this film does have, and oh yes we shall see.

It’s time to talk about Bub.

Bub is an everyday zombie guy just trying to get by, doing what zombies do. Eat flesh and shuffle around. At least that was his life. Then he came into the care of crazy Dr. Logan. Who began using him as his main test subject. His proof that even though when we turn to zombies and crave the flesh of the living. There is still buried in our heads. Some memory of our former selves, and thus the possibility that we can coexist and not be seen as simply food.

He's been working a lot on Bub, to the point that the zombie greets him, looks forward to their time together, doesn’t even look at the doctor as a food source any more. He just enjoys being handed random items that seem oddly familiar and do indeed seem to remind him of his previous life. From being given a Stephen King book, a nice nod from the director to his buddy, to getting a Walkman and hearing music. Having an ‘oh shit that track is lit!’ moment, True he may rip his own flesh off his cheek when handed a razor. Which he does do. But at least you can tell he KNOWS what the razor is for and what it does.

It's an interesting concept that Romero tried fleshing out, and got to bring out full circle by the time he unleashed City of the Dead on us, whether we wanted it or not.

Sarah and another fellow scientist are watching Logan and his pet project Bub. Both amazed, and in fear. Amazed Bub hasn’t once lunged out at the doctor, and is actually acting semi human. But also you know, ass puckering terror at what happens when and if Bub does. I mean, you can bring a wolf into your house and get it to eat food you give it, but it can still turn and tare your ass to shreds because at the end of the day. Wolf is still a wolf.

Is that the case with loveable Bub? Well we shall see. Won’t. We?!

Actually we might find out real freaking soon. As Sarah watches in awe and faint amusement at the display between the doctor and Bub, Rhodes silently has been watching behind them. And seeing the weird display in front of him. He is far less impressed and a lot more in the what the hell is this mickey mouse bull shit type mindset.

So naturally being the alpha bat shit crazy soldier, he walks into the room demanding answers. The moment he enters the room, we see Bub is a bit upset about this. Which is slightly understanding, given Rhodes first reaction to seeing Bub, is to pull out his revolver, and this is a HUGE revolver. Bub isn’t happy, and Rhodes isn’t happy. The two are off to a great start. Meanwhile Dr. Logan sees nothing wrong with this. He has full confidence in Bub behaving and sees Rhodes as being the only problem present.

Well if Rhodes is going in, might as well invite EVERYONE!

It’s actually a big deal for the group when nothing else happens down below so, you know. You make do with what you can. So Logan shows off Bubs skills. He also explains that he just enjoyed the idea of meeting a zombie guy named ‘Bub’, it’s the little things in life.

Rhodes is unimpressed by this show of dog tricks, but also scared at the fact, Logan has been spending his time, and his mens lives, doing all this research. Just to have a zombie use a telephone, shave itself, and work a pistol. Oh hey look a pistol.

A PISTOL?!

Well actually Logan asked one of the men for it. Because Bub, upon noting the army outfit on Rhodes. He actually moves to salute Rhodes, much to the amusement of Rhodes men. So Logan decides ‘hey, lets give him an empty gun, and see what Bub does in this instance!”

It’s a HUGELY what the fuck moment, and funny as hell. Mostly because the dynamic of having Logan the crazy ass mad doctor being super excited about his subject interacting with a soldier, wanting to further the interaction, Rhodes crazy wild eyed staring at the doctor and Bub trying to understand what the hell he’s seeing, and then hearing the words ‘give him a gun’ on top of it. It’s priceless.

So of course they give Bub a gun. Thankfully yes they did make sure it was empty.

And what, ask you. Does a zombie do with a gun? Well he tries to eat it, and smell it. But eventually hey he does not how it works! He holds it, cocks it, and the moment the slide locks and Bub’s mind would picture a bullet being chambered. Bub stares back at Rhodes and aims the pistol at him. Rhodes is not amused. He’s even less amused when Bub pulls the trigger, and the reaction from the zombie as it recognizes nothing happened. There was supposed to be a bang and blood. Dr. Logan is beside himself with glee. He has proven in front of all the men that there is some brain activity and recognition there. It COULD be possible to retrain their brains.

Meanwhile Logan is beside himself at the fact a flesh eating zombie just took a shot at him with a pistol, so he feels compelled to answer back by once again pulling out and aiming his large revolver at Bub. Which oddly enough, does elicit a response from Bub. He cowers in fear at Rhodes aiming the gun at him. A zombie fearing for its life, that is. Definitely a new one. But Rhodes is not impressed. He’ll be happier when Bub is dead. But Logan stands in front of the revolver with no hesitation. He is not going to let his friend Bub eat a bullet. He might be crazy as hell, but he is ride or die for his friend. Just not so much for humans.

Rhodes, has questions. He could walk away from this, but after a zombie who normally would be chomping at your ass and clawing at you holds a gun on you, well. You would have questions as well. So an emergency meeting is called and Rhodes is demanding to know just how the hell this is supposed to blow his socks away and justify all the time they’ve spent underground, all the men he’s lost in protecting the scientist and hording zombies for them to use. But for Logan, it makes perfect sense how this is the start of something big. It’s the building blocks, baby steps of civilization. Setting up a basic form of communicating, using and introducing it to the zombies outside. They learn to communicate again. Once they learn that, then we are on the road to working together, living together and basic understanding instead of endlessly fighting and killing each other.

There is juuuuuust one tiny catch. Which we will get to.

Rhodes however, does not want civilized zombies. He doesn’t want flesh eating neighbors. He wants these things dead, and the fact he’s learning these scientist are doing nothing to try and eradicate the zombie plaque, and are instead trying to socialize them, reintroducing them back into society. Which is not all that amazing, when you realize society is now overwhelmingly the ones you are trying to teach. But it would be an interesting world.

Imagine that, a Planet of the Zombies type movie where living people are the minority and zombies rule the world. THERE is an idea for you!

The meeting ultimately is useless. Logan just sticks to his guns that his work is what will lead them into a future where fighting will be a thing of the past, that all we need for this to work. All of it to work. Is rewards. By rewarding the zombies, like Bub, encouraging good behavior, it will spread to the others, and that will give you control. Just like with kids. Promise them a snack and they’ll clean their rooms. Or at least shove everything under the bed.

Though I guess the zombie equivalent is pushing the human corpses under the bed.

Well back to work it seems, as the meeting goes nowhere and the scientist once again need more specimens. So our army guys are out back in the salt tunnel and wrangling up two zombies. Miguel is once again helping out. Which can only mean good things, having a man on edge who screwed up dropping his restraint pole the last time, now back doing the same job as before. What could go wrong.

A LOT!!

But thankfully Miguel is not dropping his restraint pole this time! He’s holding on and proving he’s got this! Much to the joy of the other soldiers, feeling infinitely safer. At least they were until the leather neck strap of the restraint pole snaps and the zombie Miguel was restraining breaks free. Immediately ripping the throat out of one nearby soldier. Instantly bringing down the warm feeling of being safe they once had. Miguel watches things unfold and instantly jumps into action! No not action as in helping his fellow soldiers, instant action as in immediately telling everyone present this wasn’t his fault. He did his job, and the pole itself was the issue. He wants everyone there to know he is totally clear of wrong doing. That is the most important thing to do right now. Absolutely.

Unfortunately the others don’t agree with this. He gets knocked on his ass, and coincidentally a zombie ends up ripping out a chunk of his wrist. Knowing they will kill his ass, as a bullet is the only treatment for any kind of bite. Miguel takes off down into the salt tunnels. While Steel is forced to pull out his pistol and take the life of one of his fellow soldiers, Johnson who, funnily enough with all the walking dead references so far, is played by Greg Nicotero, he studied under Tom Savini and has become one of the big names in makeup effects, finding a whole lotta work on Walking Dead, Creepshow the series, dude is all over and its awesome seeing him meet an unfortunate end in this movie.

Speaking of unfortunate, Miguel is stumbling down the tunnels running for his life, finding himself outside the home of John and McDermott, Sarah is on the spot, seeing what’s happened to her man, she does the only thing she can think to. She chops off his arm and uses a torch to cauterize the bleeding stump. It is, not a fun day for Miguel, and it’s a pretty creepily done shot. Major kudos to Savini and his team.

Hopefully she caught it in time before the infection could spread through his system and begin to turn him into a zombie. Which itself is an interesting development as the last film simply had people waiting it out when they were bit and promising to do their best not to turn and let it get them. Only to end up zombies in the end, taken out by their friends and family.

Meanwhile Rhodes and the happy bunch who Miguel left earlier, have located our friends and would like a word with Miguel. But Sarah is armed and defending her man, promising she believes she stopped the infection, but if she didn’t She’ll kill him herself. Rhodes would gladly take Miguel out right now, but Sarah has the armed backup of John and McDermott at her back. So Rhodes decides to let them be for now. Promising if she doesn’t take care of it.

Things are getting too spicy for the pepper!

And everyone knows it now.

Sarah is breaking down and her friends can see it. I mean damn, the woman just amputated her boyfriends arm without a second thought let alone human reaction. She was entirely in doctor mode and after it all happens and the armed men leave. She realizes what she just had to do and how crazy it all is, and is still getting. Even more so now that they’ve upset the army guys even more AND Sarah needs to head back to the science labs to grab morphine for Miguel. Which means putting her right back in the sights of the men they just ticked off. So yeah, not a good plan, but they need to do it.

But Sarah isn’t going alone. She’s got ‘flyboy’ McDermott with her. Making sure they get in and out of that lab as quickly as possible. Only that isn’t entirely going to happen. As the two make their way to the lab, they stumble onto Logans lab work. While Sarah busies herself getting medical supplies, McDermott decides to look around, finding a tape player he decides to find what tunes the doc might be into while working. Only to find a recording of his lab work, and what sounds like the doctor talking to himself, to his long dead mother. We also hear him getting angry at his subjects for not acting civilized, telling them they wont be rewarded if they aren’t good children. It’s becoming very evident the doctor is really, just maybe out of his mind, by a whole brain.

This is further confirmed once McDermott uncovers a mysterious bloody object on an operating table, finding the head of the freshly dead Johnson on the table, with electrodes hooked up to his brain, while his severed head still continues to function. Realizing the doctor has moved on from using just the zombies as his test subjects to now using the dead soldiers, it’s pretty clear to Sarah and McDermott, that they need to get the hell out of this place before the soldiers discover what the doctor is up too.

Speaking of our friendly butchering doctor. He’s humming to himself happily and walking down the hall to see Bub, carrying a bucket with him. Sarah spotting him decides they should investigate, because not why? While in Rome you know.

What they find his Logan enjoying his time with Bub, giving him music to listen to before telling him “It’s time for your, reward!”, which yes, we shall discover his reward for being such a good boy. His reward, is the bucket. A bucket which is full of human meat. Not just any human meat. But the recently killed and medically decapitated soldier Johnson. Sarah realizing this, McDermott also seeing it. Both realize they are so very completely and utterly screwed if Rhodes discovers this. Which as Sarah turns to look away from the display. Discovers Rhodes behind her and he absolutely is learning what treat time is, and where it comes from.

It doesn’t matter what the good doctor Logan has to say. He’s lost his power and position by feeding another human to those zombies. So Rhodes unloads into him with his M16. Round after round until the doctor falls over dead. It’s the beginning of the end, and we are all invited. With that Rhodes is all too happy announcing they are done. Ding dong the doc is dead, Sarah and flyboy are being stripped of their weapons and taken along on Rhodes party train to John and McDermott’s house.

As they approach, John pulls out his mini automatic. Rhodes has an offer to make him. Either he comes with them and flies them in the helicopter out of there, or he shoots Sarah and his friend. John is hardcore and tell’s them to get bent, he’s not doing that, especially if they end up killing people.  John makes the mistake of mentioning to Rhodes that the helicopter only holds 4, and there are way too many bodies currently. So Rhodes lets him know the plan is much simpler than John knows. John is going to take Rhodes and his three men on that helicopter and they’re getting the hell out of there, or he's going to kill people until he gets his shit together. John test him on this telling him again it aint happening, no one needs to die. But Rhodes pops off a round into Sarah’s fellow scientist, making her the last of the doctors, which honestly is worth considering taking with you as medics are in definite short supply.

James seeing Rhodes blow the mans head away immediately agrees to do as he says, so long as they don’t kill anyone else. He surrenders his weapons and the large group make their way down back into the tunnels. Making a pit stop at the  zombie wrangling gates. Rhodes may not kill Sarah and McDermott. But he’s sure as hell going to let the zombies do it for him.

You might be wondering where during all of this Miguel is. Well. Miguel was recovering on the couch before things started to go down hill. So as John went to arm himself and see what Rhodes was up to. Miguel made an escape out the back. He has a plan. Which no one signed up for. No one knows of, and if they did know. They all collectively would’ve killed him. Miguel is done with this world and this life. He took off, cradling his stump of an arm and found the large elevator to the surface. He’s activating that sucker and riding it up to the surface. Rhodes and his men hear the loud alarm of the elevator being used and begin heading that way to see what the hells going on. As the men are distracted though. John uses the distraction to punch Rhodes to the ground. The two find themselves wrestling it out but John is the ultimate victor, knocking out Rhodes and his lacky as Steel and Rickles run off for the elevator. John disarms Rhodes and his lacky, taking all the guns they had and takes off down into the salt mine tunnels to save his friends. Like I said John Is ride or die

When Steel and Rickles arrive, they see that Miguel has screwed with the controls to the platform elevator. Miguel ripped out the guts to the elevator. The only way to control it now rest in his one good hand, a control box.

So above ground Miguel is stumbling over to the large fence overflowing with zombies, they can smell the death in the air and his blood. He opens the fence gate and begins walking off to the platform elevator. The entire horde of zombies following after him. With that, Miguel begins praying, biting his dog tag chains between his teeth, holding the control box and laying down on the lift. He’s waiting and the zombies do not disappoint. They are on him and the horde is growing larger and filling up the large lift. As his throat is being ripped out and the man Is still breathing. He uses the last of his strength, having waited long enough and pushes the lift button once more.

It's an amazing ‘oh shit’ scene as Rickles and Steel now joined with a back on his feet Rhodes take in the scene and the lift drops down slowly. Carrying an entire army of zombies. Hundreds just flooding the lift, to the point a few even fall off the lift. Rhodes seeing this nightmare play out waste no time and immediately takes off running. He jumps into the golf cart and is driving off down into the tunnels, leaving his men behind.

Because that’s the way she goes bud.

So needless to say the situation overall is grim and they are all fucked. Immediately the zombies descend onto one of the slower soldiers and give us one of the films more iconic deaths. Which we are about to get a lot of. The soldier tried acting out a scene from Dukes and Hazard, sliding across a pallet board, but wood is not as easy as a polished painted hood to slide your ass across. So he ends up stuck and the zombies are pulling at his body holding him down. A zombie hand above his head reaches out and claws two fingers into his eye sockets. The zombies begin to rip his body apart and the man begins screaming. The horrific part that makes it so memorable is that as he’s screaming, the hand holding his head like a literal bowling ball is pulling his head off. And as we see the flesh tare and his head come off. His scream raises its pitch to an ear shattering high pitched non human scream before going silent, and we still see his mouth moving in a silent scream as the zombie takes off with his head.

Rickles is no better off. He and Steel are bros. But not when it comes to survival. Rickles took off and is trying to shoot the zombies while nervously laughing and evading them. Only to find himself trapped and. I mean well.

If you shoot zombies, if you’ve been fighting them for I presume a very long time now. You go for the head. Rickles was just firing off into the mass of bodies never once making a kill shot. Dude did not read the instructions clearly.

So as they take down poor Rickles, he gets the second worst death here. His stomach is being torn open as well as his face. It’s pretty damn graphic and I love it. We even see his eye pop out of his skull and fingers dig in to crush it as they tare the man apart.

Meanwhile in the tunnels. We have Sarah and McDermott running for their lives. Picking up shovels, pick axes and anything they can use to stop the zombies they run into. There’s a great effects gag in this when they knock down one of the zombies and use a shovel to slam down into the zombies head. It cuts through his mouth into the soil and they use the shovel to flick the top part of his head off. As they run away, you can see the zombies eyes moving. It’s really cool and again kudos to Savini and his people on this.

Even funnier during this whole killing spree Sarah and McDermott go on, Every time they have one moment to catch their breath. McDermott is popping open his flask and taking a swig until the booze is gone. I love the mans priorities.

Also down those tunnels and after his friends. John is a one man arsenal. Using Rhodes weapons to blow away one zombie after another. Man is relentless and doing all he can to find his buddies. Which thankfully he does! And no one accidentally shoots anyone either! Hurrah! Hurrah all around!

As for Rhodes? Oh he’s got a very special death waiting, and we get some emotional pay off too. As all hell breaks loose, We have Bub in his little room, realizing that the bolt securing his chains to the wall has come free, this actually concerns him. He’s like legit worried because it  broke. So he goes looking for Dr. Logan. Whom he finds in the meat freezer dead.

The moment he recognizes his friend is dead. Bub is immediately sad. He’s angry and sad that his friend is dead. It’s a legit moment of actual emotion and from a damn zombie.

That same zombie also finds the corpse of a recently dead soldier and is now armed wondering the halls.

As for Steel? Well. That ass balloon of a man decided he wasn’t going to get eaten and he puts his gun in his mouth, pulling the trigger and goodbye Steel.

Meanwhile Rhodes has thankfully found himself a weapons rack. He picks up an M16, trying to load it, only he hears someone coming, and that someone is Bub. He sees the zombie is armed and rushes even faster to rack a round into the rifle while trying to escape down the hall as Bub fires a wild shot. But the second one he fires lands in his shoulder, knocking the rifle down. Rhodes is having a pretty crappy day over all.

He limps down a hallway, now reduced to moving at just a few paces above zombie speed. As he rounds a corner into an empty hallway, he double times it down the hallway seeing a closed door, figuring he can lock himself away in there away from Bub. As he approaches the door and swings it open. He’s met with a an overflowing of zombies reaching out for him. He screams into their faces and spins around to bolt away. Only to be shot right in the stomach by Bub. The zombies grab onto Rhodes and begin taring the man in half. It’s a classic scene as Rhodes watches them tare his body in half and begin eating his orgams, and the man in his last tough guy act growls out “Choke on’em! Choke on’em!” and with that, Rhodes is dead, and Bub gives a salute to the fallen man.

With that we begin Romero’s favorite time, the aftermath shot. As we are greeted to scene after scene of zombies all throughout the compound, carrying torn limps, eating actual chunks of sausage and meat in bbq sauce, and tugging at actual guts and fake intestines. If I remember correctly in fact the guts they used for Rhodes death were real cow guts and began to stink like unholy hell so. Props to Joseph Pilato on that one.

As for our reunited group? They’ve found their way outside the tunnels. They’ve made it safely to the surface, not a zombie in sight. It would seem Miguel really did get every last zomvie there on the lift when he took it down!

Our group is running for the helicopter and freedom. John is unfastening the ties securing the blades as McDermott powers things up. Sarah rushes to get inside and ZOMBIES!!

But it’s a dream. Thankfully. Sarah wakes up startled. But not inside the compound. She wakes up on a sandy beach, surrounded by a few boxes of military supplies, hearing the cries of seagulls, waves crashing, and to her right on the beack McDermott sits drinking on the beach on a blanket, as John fishes off the shore. She’s made it, and with that, the movie pulls back and we roll credits. Yay for surviving the freakin zombies and army!

The End

I hold no secrets for how much I love this movie, and what it meant to me growing up. It was the first film I rented to include a making of documentary outside of the old VHS tape my parents bought of Michael Jacksons Thriller. So it was a rare glimpse for me into the world of special makeup effects and the joy that is Tom Savini. I watched it multiple times back to back and never tired of it. Even now it’s the same thing, it’s a great movie with not too much action, which you gotta be in the mood for, but it works for some folks who enjoy story over gore in their horror. But the movie does not skimp on that factor what so ever. Of the dead trilogy films, it remains one of the most noted ones for best kills, effects makeup and scenes. This film gave us the now classic and often recreated, even the Simpsons did it. Its during the beginning when they show the empty dead streets of the florida town and a newspaper caught by the wind flashes its headline THE DEAD WALK.

The movie is just a classic, and it gets a lot more love than Dawn of the Dead. But that’s not to say Dawn isn’t a good film. It is, it’s different but good. Just that movie isn’t seen nearly as much because the person who bought the writes wants an unheard of insane amount of money for it, thus why no one has put out an ultimate directors cut bluray or 4k cut.

It was a film Romero made and had to watch get butchered both in editing and from story as the budget was torn apart and he couldn’t tell the story he wanted. Which he later on attempted with City of the Dead, reintroducing the idea originated with Bub about intelligent zombies, people taking over cities as camps, and organizing raider groups. The movie wasn’t horrible. It was just. Different, and a far cry from Day of the Dead, which honestly with its cut down budget, and having to reduce the number of people and sets. It really adds to the feel of hopelessness and this being closer to the end of things versus the possibility of salvaging them.

It stuck with me as a film I fell in love with for the gore, the story, and as I keep repeating the special effects. Because holy hell did they look great in this, and still do.

Now, for the reason it was picked.

The Music.

One of the best features with this film is the score. When you compare it to Dawn of the Dead. It’s a night and day difference. Not saying the score for Dawn is terrible. It’s very out there and very much the music of Goblin. Which is fun having. Hell the movie even teases part of the Goblin score with the new mix for the film. It’s a fun little musical cue of light hearted music in an otherwise dark film.

It’s funny because the music for this movie gets a lot of hate from fans of Dawn, because fans were hoping for more of the same as the last films score. But there were also fans on the other side who hated Dawn’s score and wanted something different. Well they both got it, and the result is a beautiful eerily creepy at times march sounding score. I’d never heard anything like it before, or since.

There’s no real way to compare it to anything. It is its own thing.

The opening tracks “Main Theme” is a 7 minute telling of the story.  It starts off gently, playing what would become Sarah’s theme later on. It brings a real sense of light into an otherwise dark world, and I think that’s a prevalent theme throughout the film and its score.

From the light it flashes suddenly into the stark reality of the world these people live in now. The tone shifts from a light almost hopeful tone, into a march of the dead. It’s a constant beat that resonates throughout and reaches its peak at our first glimpse of a zombie.

John Harrison is no stranger to Romero either. He played a zombie in Dawn of the dead that got a screwdriver to his ear in that one. He’s a director, actor, producer and composer. He did another soundtrack as well I brought up earlier on this list in fact. Creepshow. The two worked on Creepshow and from that film immediately went into Day of the Dead. So by then John had a pretty good idea it ‘sounds’ like, of what Romero was after, what he’d like more of. So in that, I feel there is some bits of the same tone as Creepshow in this. But not enough to directly highlight it. It’s just a perfect capture of the 80’s in general I think.

It's damn near a perfect score. Hell it could be, in any other instance. The closest comparison to sound has gotta be the end of horror disco, and the rise of synth march.

There are times the music carries a very militaristic sound, hence the march reference. The theme for Rhodes, sounds like rapid fire from an assault rifle shot down an empty hallway, you hear it in the track “Steele, Shoot That Woman.” It keeps an edge to it that mimes exactly where the soldiers are in this film, mentally exhausted and done with their ‘mission’,  that theme of light and dark resonates through the score and almost at times feels like it’s a back and fourth between the two. While somehow finding a way to mix in emotional beats that seem like a film all its own. You get the image of claustrophobia and tension, mounted with a rising inescapable threat, the feeling of hopelessness and in the middle of it this small sense of sadness before its time to buck up and carry on.

Something like “Sarah Dopes Miguel”, it captures the unease between the two and translates his breakdown. Just before introducing us to the real madness that is Rhodes. The way it’s done isn’t new to film, I know. But hearing it done with synths is just. Beautiful.

Having a film that takes places underground feel and sound claustrophobic is already going to drive some chills home, but having it mixed in with the sterileness of the labs and seemingly maze like hallways. Before even touching on the eeriness of the caves. Which those alone, holy hell.

Next to the main track though, one of my favorite pieces is “Sarah’s Breakdown”, its so in the moment and puts you right in her headspace, it’s also a gentler version of her overall theme, with slight changes in the overture. The beat is drawn out and expanded into something else that just comes off sounding so beautiful in the middle of an otherwise bleak film. It really stands out from the others, and I always love getting carried off by it.

An really good example of the light in the film. At least I feel, is the two tracks for Sarah’s trip out to see her two friends John and McDermontt. The first starts off with the familiar militaristic march but soon gives way to a nearly Caribbean sounding Sarah’s theme and comes to represent her two friends and their fun little home. The track “Walk To The Ritz” gets us there and carries over without skipping a beat, just a natural progression of the first tracks building blocks further expanding and building on that with “Sarah At The Ritz”, it gives each of the three characters a time to really shine and it’s a welcome change from the rest of the score.

But as I did mention earlier, the fact they moved from Creepshow into this one? The score doesn’t at all sound like Creepshow, thankfully. But it does pick up on some distinct undertones that may help you link the two. Like I said they don’t sound similar. But when you know he worked on both, you can pick up little hints of music that easily could lead you to link the two but never sound like something taken from the film itself.

I also mentioned how one of the tracks in the film paid homage to the Goblin music from Dawn. The track I was mentioning from Dawn I believe is called “The Gonk”, not to be confused with the gonk droid. It’s a very funny cheesy bit of almost circus like music, which absolutely worked for Dawn, not gonna lie. And in Day of the Dead, the composter brought back a small cue from that near the start of “Logan Teaching Bub”. It plays in the film when the lights are turned out in the room two recently caught zombies are left alone in chained to the wall.

It's funny because the movie feels hard to review at times. Because there’s more of a dictation versus description on what’s happening. Since a lot of the film is monologed or people reacting to things around them. But that’s also why I feel the film is an experience that hits differently from Dawn of the Dead. While that movie was more light balanced over dark, everything reflected that. From the music to the actors having fun and enjoying life living in a mall. They did all the things we would do if we were them. Going from that experience to the end of the world and humanity losing itself. It’s a big change in comparison and a much different ride. So some people enjoyed it, others thought it was too dark, or a bit much.

I think it’s a perfect end to an otherwise unplanned trilogy. It works perfectly and I love the version George was able to release onto us all.

I love having the score on vinyl, and a few copies around the house of the movie as well. I still enjoy watching the making of with Tom Savini’s stuff and it instantly brings me back to my childhood renting the video for the hundredth time and hitting rewind as soon as it was done, just to watch it again.

Please do check out the movie again, and again, and give the score some love. It’s a beautiful score and one of the easier listening ones on the list. You can easily get pulled into it and see the entire film in your head if you close your eyes and listen. Which can be either a good thing OR a bad one.

As for now, take care, and until tomorrow. If a zombie salutes you, salute them back, it might save your life.