Day of the Dead: 25th Anniversary Edition

Arrow Video released Day of the Dead on Blu-ray in April 2010, a package that was met with great acclaim by fans and critics alike but that did leave all of those horror fans who have not yet brought into Blu-ray without the fantastic release. This has now been remedied by a DVD release of the same package, albeit without the improved high-definition sound and visuals. If you have been waiting for six months (or even more) for this classic zombie film to get the treatment it deserves on UK DVD, then now is your chance to relax, put your hand in your pocket and go out and buy!

Renowned master of horror and creator of the contemporary zombie movie, George Romero first came to attention with the low budget Night of the Living Dead in 1968. A number of other films followed but it was in 1978, with Dawn of the Dead, that he made what most people consider to be his masterpiece. Having tackled racism and Vietnam, then rampant consumerism, Romero turned his attentions to the schism between science and the military under the watch of the increasingly bellicose Ronald Reagan.

Day of the Dead takes place almost entirely underground in a bunker were the military have joined forces with some scientists who hope to fully understand, and even cure, the zombie plague. Tensions between the two groups are high as the trigger happy soldiers would rather spend all day shooting the undead than capturing them to be experimented on by the eccentric Dr. Logan.

An early helicopter expedition has established that virtually the whole human race has gone and the dead rule. The question is how? What is it about zombies that makes them want to eat even when they have no intestines and can they be conditioned to work on their past memories and stop eating from humans? Logan thinks he is near the answer and will just need several more subjects to refine his work and showcase 'Bub', a zombie he has been working on for a long time.


The biggest threat to his experiments isn't from the zombie hoard on the surface, or the ones running around the tunnels, desperate to get to the humans behind the barricade, but Captain Rhodes and the more explosive men under his command. Rhodes makes no secret of his distain of the work that Dr Frankenstein, as he has nicknamed Logan, and all those that assist him.

As with Night and Dawn, Romero picked an atypical lead, not the strong black male of the first two films, but a female lead. The main protagonist is Sarah, a laboratory assistant and strong supporter of Logan and his work, who has frequent clashes with Rhodes who is desperate to see what he and his men risk their lives for. As the zombies mass in the bunker and tensions stretch to breaking point, it isn't a case of if something will go wrong, but when.


Romero's favourite of the original Dead trilogy, this is not necessarily overlooked but perhaps under appreciated by horror fans who prefer the monochrome bleakness of Night or the lurid blood and satire of Dawn. I fall into this category but have a lot of time for Day, certainly the goriest and most nihilistic of the three films. The acting is certainly very good, with a terrifically strong and empathetic performance by Lori Cardille as Sarah, Richard Liberty is suitably strange and unkempt as Logan but Joe Pilato steals the show as the fascistic, short-tempered and zombie-hating Rhodes. There are a variety of supporting characters on both sides of the divide - plus the helicopter crew living in their own little paradise - who are memorable and wonderfully played.

Day of the Dead arguably finds Romero at his most political and this shows in his writing and direction which seems full of rage and sadness at what had happened to the US. One of the major features of the film is the inspired SFX makeup by Tom Savini which puts all his previous work into the shade - the gore level is really cranked up and, whether it's simple squibs, an arm amputation or guts falling out onto the floor, it is still impressive now. This high level of SFX makeup allows Romero to comment on the merits, or otherwise, of vivisection with the zombies as a metaphor for monkeys and other lab animals. It is in this sense that Bub becomes such a great character and probably the finest zombie ever created.

Day of the Dead isn't my favourite of Romero's zombie films but it is a fantastic watch, a brilliantly crafted piece of horror cinema and a film that retains the power to shock and scare some 25 years after it was released.

THE DISC

Extra Features
Arrow Video have really pushed the boat out for this release, taking suggestions from fans on their website (www.cult-labs.com) and have made a quite superb two disc set which, like theirDawn of the Dead release, comes with a substantial booklet, poster and reversible sleeve that gives you a choice of four different covers. Something that this has which the Dawn of the Dead release didn't is a substantial comic book which follows the Bub storyline on past the end of the film and is a terrific watch.

The first disc comes with two featurettes: Joe of the Dead and Travelogue 09 Tour. The first is a fun and revealing chat with Joe Pilato, looking rather bohemian and a little heavier than he did in 1985. He talks candidly about making the film, how he was cast and what happened to his career after Day. In 2009 there was a tour of Scotland and Ireland and this was filmed, with Pilato chatting on the train, footage of the Q&A sessions and interviews with some of the organisers.

Also on this disc is a commentary with the SFX crew (not including Tom Savini) which is dominated by Greg Nicotero (of KNB fame) who not only assisted in the makeup process, but stars in the film as a soldier. It is a lively and informative chat and they do tend to drift off topic every now and again but it is worth a listen. It's a bit of a shame that Roger Avery's commentary from the R1 Divimax DVD didn't make it.


The second disc has a raft of supplementary material, by my reckoning, more than on any previous release. The first featurette is The Days of the Dead which is a fun and incisive look into the shoot with retrospective interviews with key members of the cast and crew plus some video footage that was shot at the time. This is a really enjoyable documentary which shows you how things were done and the hardships that everyone endured due to shooting underground for weeks on end, never seeing the sun and inhaling limestone dust.

There is a brief, five minute, look at the process into how people become zombies in a Romero film and what they went through for a signed newspaper, a cap and a dollar bill!

The fifteen minute interview with Richard Liberty is quite enlightening but the sound quality isn't great and drops out occasionally.

The rest of the disc is full of various trailers, artwork galleries and a surprisingly cheesy promo film for the Wampum Mine.


The Picture
This is the best that I have ever seen Day of the Dead look and is a marginal improvement over the magnificent Divimax DVD. The colours and clarity really stand up and the contrast levels are excellent. It allows the gruesome gore effects to look as good as they should and bump up the claustrophobia.

There is a little banding near the end, but this is only for a short time - about a minute - and doesn't detract from what is a superb transfer of a 25 year old film.


The Sound
No Goblin, no problem. John Harrison provides a pounding and doom-laden score that indicates that things are going to end badly whilst increasing the tension and horror. There are two audio options, the original stereo or a Dolby Digital 5.1 track. The stereo now sounds a little weak and tinny compared to its beefed-up competitor but they both do the job well, only the new and improved track better than the original.

What is so impressive about this soundtrack is what isn't there, allowing the atmosphere of the miles of tunnel to pervade the film and oddly make it more claustrophobic. What is important is the dialogue and this is clear and wonderfully presented.


Final Thoughts
Day of the Dead is probably my least favourite of Romero's original Dead trilogy but you are really dealing with gradients that are so small that it is still a magnificent zombie movie, a really depressing and bloody outing that is very different to Night of the Living Dead in terms of its scale, gore effects and politics.

They will be those who have been waiting for Arrow to release what most people generally regard as an absolutely stellar package on Blu-ray on good old-fashioned DVD for the store basely sizeable market of people that have yet to adopt the next-generation technology or just like to have things on DVD as well. As such, this is an extremely welcome release and an absolutely brilliant package of one of the finest contemporary zombie movies.