THE DARKEST DAY IN HORROR THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN
Day Of The Dead
Produced : 1985
Film Length : 101 minutes
Price : £5.99
Film Certificate : 18 (UK)
Directed and Written by George A. Romero
An ARROW FILM
An United Film Distribution Company presentation
Distributed in the UK by 4FRONT Video/Polygram Video
Others - Night Of The Living Dead (1968), Dawn Of The Dead (1979), Night Of The Living Dead (1990 remake). Also the Zombie Flesh Eaters series by Lucio Fulci are known as unofficial sequels.
Description:
The Walking Dead have taken over the world and time is running out for the living survivors holed up in an underground missile silo. They must find a way to overcome the living dead or they will all die. Food is running low; ammunition and medical supplies are almost gone - the scientific and military teams are at each other’s throats. Their only hope of survival rests on controlling and domesticating the walking dead or getting them back to the grave - for good.
A MASTERPIECE OF MODERN HORROR - Sounds
HORRIFYINGLY GOOD SPECIAL EFFECTS - Financial Times
Tom Savini on the body rip effect :
" In Day Of The Dead there was a character called Rhodes, played by Joe Pilato. This guy’s shooting people at random and blowing them away, so he had to die gloriously. So we said, let’s just tear him in half. We could have done it with a fake body and torn him in half, but it would not have had the same impact or emotion. We used his real head and arms and gave him a fake foam rubber chest. His real body was under a platform, with a fake body placed under his armpits. It was stuffed with anything we could find from the food table and intestines that we had used throughout the film. Unfortunately, they were left in a refrigerator that was unplugged and the smell was incredible. . We filled it with guts and chicken livers, shrimp dip and apple cores (eh?) Whatever we could find. We couldn’t protect Rhodes with anything up his nose, but we sure protected ourselves with respirators. So he was getting that stench. We were actually pumping blood into this cavity as well, so it was pretty juicy as the zombies tore into the flesh and walked away with his lower body. His expression of sickness was very real because he was getting the stench from that stuff. It was even more real afterwards when the camera stopped rolling. Then he really looked like he was going to heave!"
*Of course, Savini’s best work was for Friday the 13th.
Day Of The Dead is not as good as some people make out - certainly the second half is, but the first hour contains no gore and little number of events. Although slow to begin with though, Day Of The Dead is very entertaining when you get into it but the overall story is a well written, following on from Dawn Of The Dead, only this time with new characters. The second best of the series.
9.0 out of 10.0
By Richard Gift