Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Day of the Dead Blu-ray Movie Review

Underground classic?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 15, 2013

George A. Romero is often credited with having reestablished (or even having outright established) the modern zombie film with his 1968 opus Night of the Living Dead. It’s perhaps instructive then to note that it actually was a good ten years before Romero followed up Night of the Living Dead with Dawn of the Dead in 1978, and then another seven years until Day of the Dead appeared in 1985. In the interim, Romero at least tried to stretch out into other fare like Creepshow, but the zombie genre seems to be what Romero will forever be associated with, for better or worse. When I was first introduced to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in my freshman college level Film Theory course (this was long before the days of home video or cable television, mind you), and was then required to write an essay about what I thought it "meant", I managed to eschew the more typical race relations angle many have imputed to the film to instead make the iconic “if you shoot the head, you kill the ghoul” sentiment of the film into a perceived screed about anti-intellectualism. My only excuse for this now embarrassing decision is that I was still only 17 had just recently been immersed in a high school onslaught of reading material by Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. But there’s one salient point of interest to be gleaned from my patently ridiculous response to the film: Romero’s zombie outings have always seemed to have something more on their minds than merely providing us with a few scares with shots of slowly marauding undead munching their way through an ever diminishing food supply of living human beings. Romero has of course followed Day of the Dead with even more zombie offerings, including the Night of the Living Dead reboot (which he wrote but did not direct), but this film holds an interesting place in Romero’s zombie oeuvre as an outing that was met with some resistance when it was first released but which has gained a more appreciative audience in the many years since its theatrical exhibition.

There were huge tonal variances between Night of the Living Dead, in many ways the most “traditional” horror film in Romero’s zombie filmography, and Dawn of the Dead, which had an almost slapstick feel to it, at least some of the time. But few were probably prepared for the kind of dour, depressing and intensely introspective outing that Day of the Dead turned out to be. While Day mimicked one aspect of Dawn, by taking place (mostly) in one labyrinthine but enclosed space, the ambience here is decidedly more dramatic and almost hopeless feeling, detailing as it does the desperate exploits of a ragtag group of human survivors who are trying to withstand the zombie onslaught by hunkering down in an underground bunker. In a very real way, and in a way that may or may not be intentionally playing in an ironic way on the title of the film, Day of the Dead is probably the darkest of the first three zombie films.

In what turns out to be a recurring motif in the film, what appears to be happening in the opening sequence is in fact a dream—or nightmare. Sarah (Lori Cardille) is the dreamer in question, though considering the world into which she awakes, she may well want to stay asleep, even if her dreams are a bit unsettling. Evidently years have now passed since the outbreak of zombieism, to the point where Sarah’s scientific cohort Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty) estimates that the undead outnumber living humans at a ratio of 400,000 to 1. Sarah is part of a scouting team which ventures forth topside occasionally to see if there is any noticeable life moving around. Her search proves unsuccessful, and she returns to the underground lair where an uneasy mix of scientists and military personnel attempt to figure a way out (both literally and figuratively) of their predicament.

Even the underground lair is not completely safe territory, for Sarah is tangentially involved when a bunch of the macho military guys round up slowly marauding zombies wandering through the caves and treat them like so many cows, putting them in stalls and then clamping huge iron “necklaces” around them in order to control them, ultimately delivering them back to the lab where Logan and Sarah are investigating the outbreak, albeit from different perspectives. Unfortunately one of the military guys, Miguel (Antone DiLeo), seems precariously close to a mental breakdown, and his ultimate freakout starts to uncover simmering tensions in the group, some evidently because Sarah, the only female in the surviving group of humans, has been shacking up with him, and some of the other guys feel that maybe they’ll have a chance if Miguel goes off the deep end.

The bulk of Day of the Dead details the slowly devolving interrelationships and mental health of the various survivors. The chief bad guy is Rhodes (Joe Pilato), the martinet ruler of the military side of things, who becomes increasingly unhinged, threatening at one point to shoot Sarah if she doesn’t sit down and remain in a “meeting” he’s called. Meanwhile, Logan is convinced that he can actually “train” the zombies to behave better by using a reward and punishment system. He actually has a fair degree of success with one imprisoned zombie nicknamed Bub (Howard Sherman, who evidently went on to reverse his professional name as Sherman Howard). Rhodes is having none of this “New Age” rehabilitation nonsense, and things get to a boiling point when Rhodes and his cohorts discover exactly what Logan has been using to feed his little “pet”.

I have a feeling what may have created part of the misperception Day of the Dead sometimes engenders in viewers is the fact that it’s part of a supposed trilogy, though as discussed above, the trilogy is all over the map from a tonal perspective. Night was a chilling but visceral romp through horror tropes, and Dawn was like a Keystone Cops movie with zombies instead of policeman. The sudden abrupt turn into character study in Day probably caught more than a few—even diehard Romero fans— completely off guard. Day is an ode to survival at any cost, and as such, it has fewer outright scares than the first film and certainly none of the comedy (despite the manic laughter of several supporting characters) of the second outing. Day of the Dead is therefore probably the hardest of the original three Dead films to outright “enjoy”, but for my money, it’s the most thoughtful of the bunch. That’s right—I just called a zombie movie thoughtful.

Day of the Dead Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Day of the Dead is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory (an imprint of Shout! Factory) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Fans of the film will know that Starz/Anchor Bay released a generally nice accounting of the film on Blu-ray several years ago. This Shout! release is being touted as coming from an "all new film transfer", and there are some subtle but noticeable differences between this and the Anchor Bay release. The aspect ratio here is obviously slightly different, and a minimal amount of information has been lost, which nevertheless may bother some videophiles. The palette here looks quite a bit warmer to me than on the Anchor Bay release, with flesh tones especially ruddy in comparison to the previous release. Fine detail may be marginally improved here, but it's an incremental improvement and one which doesn't appreciably improve the sharpness or clarity of the film (if I were able to, I'd probably give this a 3.75 rating to indicate a bump up from the Anchor Bay release). The opening several minutes of the film, which include the credits, is one long optical and looks quite soft in comparison to even the rest of the film, as do the other opticals (as should be expected). The rather amazing makeup and other special effects look marvelously gruesome in this offering. One thing that frankly surprised me here was the relative lack of grain, especially in the many darker scenes, something that seems to be at odds with the rather aggressively pushed contrast on display here. Make no mistake—there is definitely fine grain here, rolling quite naturally through the image, but it's very fine and tends not to spike at all in the many shrouded sequences scattered throughout the film.

Day of the Dead Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unlike the Starz/Anchor Bay release, this new Blu-ray sports only the film's original mono mix, presented via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. While shallow, and struggling a bit with prioritization when things get sonically busy and especially when the John Harrison score comes into play, overall things are very clear and well balanced here. Dialogue and some of the frankly goofy sound effects sound clear and precise, and the track has none of the (slight) editing that plagued the faux surround mix on the Anchor Bay outing. Fidelity is excellent, and of course dynamic range is very wide courtesy of all the grunting, groaning, and tons of gunfire.

Day of the Dead Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• World's End: The Legacy of Day of the Dead (1080p; 1:25:26) is an absolutely first rate (feature length) documentary on the film and really in a way Romero's entire zombie output. Filled with great interviews and archival video, this is a treasure trove for Romero fans, even if they're not particularly fond of this film.


• Behind the Scenes Footage (1080i; 30:42) is culled from Special Makeup Effects Creator Tom Savini's personal archives.


• Wampum Mine Promotional Video (1080i; 8:12)


• Underground: A Look Into the Day of the Dead Mines (1080p; 7:37) features Ed Demko, along with Skip Docchio, who was Facility Tech on the film.


• Theatrical Trailers (1080p; 5:55)


• TV Spots (1080i; 1:35)


• Still Galleries include Behind the Scenes, Locations, Posters and Lobby Cards, and Miscellaneous.


• Commentary with Writer/Director George A. Romero, Special Make-Up Effects Artist Tom Savini, Production Designer Cletus Anderson and Actress Lori Cardille. Despite being "crowded", this is a reasonably well mannered commentary, though perhaps surprisingly Cardille tends to take the lead most of the time instead of Romero. There's a ton of background information here, including the Pittsburgh roots of many of the cast and crew (Cardille's father was a Pittsburgh television personality and many of the crew came from Mister Rogers Neighborhood, believe it or not). Some of the information is a bit picayune, like the fact that many of the cast members were short, but this is a great trip down memory lane that should delight the film's fans.


• Commentary with Filmmaker Roger Avary. This is the Anchor Bay commentary, ported over to this release. Avary is a huge fan of the film, but he does tend to talk quite a bit about himself (and Quentin Tarantino), albeit within the context of what this film meant to him growing up and as a young professional trying to break into the business. He seems to get a bit more wrapped up in the film as it goes along, and the second half of this commentary has several longish pauses.

Day of the Dead Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I evidently am much fonder of Day of the Dead than my colleague Martin Liebman, who reviewed the Starz/Anchor Bay version. But I completely understand why some may not (initially at least) "get" this film. This does not have the visceral entertainment value of the first two Dead films, and is really more of an introspective, moody effort that is frankly kind of a downer for most of its running time. But Romero crafts some great sequences here, and he makes Bub, the hapless zombie learning to be a "good boy", into one of the most memorable undead of all time. This Blu-ray offers slightly different (and to my eyes, marginally improved) video quality from the Anchor Bay release, offers the original mono mix sounding fine, and comes replete with great supplements, including some from the previous Anchor Bay release, as well as new ones commissioned especially for this version. Recommended.