I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Romero VS Romero

Day Of The Dead (1985)
Day Of The Dead (2008)


Okay, saying this is a battle of two Romero films isn't quite fair. After all, George Romero had absolutely nothing to do with the so-called remake (and probably isn't thrilled to be associated with the original either). Day Of The Dead was to be the third zombie movie after Night Of The Living Dead and Dawn Of The Dead. So without further ado, we venture into the torture - err I mean the wonder of these two pieces of... film.

I'm the last woman left alive and I have a headache.

In 1985 this is Romero's vision/version: Zombies now own the world. What few people remain are literally trapped in underground facilities. Any attempt to go 'topside' will most likely end in getting yourself eaten. They are still around by the millions. In this movie, an estimate is given by one 'scientist' that, depending on how fresh a corpse is when it becomes zombified, they could last anywhere from ten to twelve years. Yikes. We're screwed. So here we have a small band of civilian scientists and a small band of military men loyal to a government that no longer exists. And they hate each other. A lot. Much of the movie could be described this way:

Military: We hate you civilian scientists because you haven't stopped these zombies so we're going to throw a bunch of F-bombs at you until we feel better because there's no women here and we've got nothing better to do.

Will this be covered on my HMO?

Scientists: We hate you military men because you can't even defend us properly against the millions of dead trying to eat us so we're going to throw a bunch of F-bombs at you until we feel better because our research isn't going anywhere and we've got nothing better to do.

My agent said my look was perfect for this part.

Ke$ha? Just put a bullet in my brain already!

That's basically the whole movie, with a couple of subplots mixed in. One scientist is trying to get a zombie known as 'Bub' to remember who he used to be. His goal: The dead can't all be destroyed so maybe they can be trained. Oh sure, ravenous zombies will really want to just play nice and do our grunt work for us. That's Shaun Of The Dead stuff - which was supposed to be funny. This isn't. Anywho, three of the scientists decide to escape (To where exactly? And why didn't they in the first place?) and a lot of firepower and stupid moves later they're down to three people and the military guys.... well, they would have been able to stop them, but a fourth scientist who knows his number is up anyway opens a huge silo door and lets the undead in for an all-you-can-eat military buffet. The three scientists make it to a helicopter they've had through this whole movie (like I said they could have been gone long ago) and, after one last gasp as a zombie grabs the woman (oh yeah, there was ONE woman there) from inside the helicopter - she wakes up and the three are on a nice warm island somewhere. Oh, end with a dream sequence, cute. In other words... no there really are no other words to say about this one.




Fast forward to 2008 where an enterprising and movie stealing Jeffrey Reddick writes a screenplay to 'remake' this movie. His words:  "It's going to be a separate movie...We wanted to pay homage to the original with the military and the scientists and the socially relevant stuff that George Romero always does, but we wanted to put a fresh spin on it." What he really should have said was "We're going to take Romero's title so people think it's his movie and do whatever we damn well please." I mean it was so....  not DOTD that I had to ask Tim Forston, who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do if this was even the same movie. Yup. I mean it was supposed to be, but is very very not.

Don't worry, you were going to stay a virgin anyway.

This abomination starts in Colorado (although most of the movie was shot in Bulgaria with small parts in LA) with teenagers getting it on in an abandoned building. Oh yeah, totally like the original (insert heavy sarcasm here). Meanwhile, people are mysteriously getting nosebleeds and becoming sick. Soon sick turns to slobbering, ravenous zombies. These are not your shambling zombies of the original. These suckers are your 'sporty' zombie, they run, they jump, they can leap over cars, fences, one even  (I'm telling the absolute truth here) jumps UP a wall CLIMBS ALONG THE CEILING to drop down on his dinner. Great, Spiderzombie. In other words, it doesn't matter how long these 'new' versions can live, we're really screwed. The people we're supposed to care about we don't, the military does have a presence (mainly to keep this town locked up and who cares about any survivors) and so do scientists I guess (at the end they reach a facility where there has been the obligatory viral research gone bad) but other than this it is a horrid mishmash of subplots, lots of guts and intestines (we MUST have intestines in zombie movies - apparently it's not brains, but human waste that really attracts these things) and I'm sorry but I had such a hard time paying attention I couldn't really tell you much except that three are left at the end and escape the town and all the zombies are supposedly dead - and then you have the 'surprise' ending of a zombie face close-up. Oh, I was so scared. Actually I was yawning so much I gave myself a headache. One new bit of zombie lore this Reddick guy tried to add: If you're a vegetarian in life and you become a zombie you may be violent but you won't eat anybody. WHAAAAAT? You know what, never mind, it isn't even worth thinking about.

Four people, four guns, one zombie still walking.

I'm tough, I'm - damn I broke a nail!