Day of the Dead (1985, George A. Romero) (Patreon)

67/100

Spoilers ahoy. Really just re: one character's death.

Having seen Land of the Dead upon its 2005 release—back then, I was less of a chronology stickler about non-numbered sequels (see also the Bond franchise)—I was already aware that Romero had gradually made his zombies/ghouls/undead lurchers progressively more intelligent and self-aware over the course of the series. All the same, it was a pleasure to finally, belatedly witness the inflection point. About half of Day consists of exactly what I'd hoped for following a recent second look at Dawn: individualization of the horde, explicitly comparing/contrasting one particular zombie to the surviving humans. Bub fully embodies the pathos hinted at in the previous installment, and having everyone refer to Dr. Logan as Frankenstein—correctly, with no #Actually required for once!—constitutes winking acknowledgement of the debt that this development inevitably owes to Shelley. Romero couldn't possibly top Night for sheer terror, nor Dawn for pointed satire; humanizing the formerly human, with an emphasis on their fuzzy memories of their lives when among the living, was really the only artistically fruitful direction for him to take. Had the entire movie been devoted to scientific exploration, with the military merely a means of procuring subjects (and perhaps the cause of some requisite carnage), I suspect it would have been as great as its two predecessors. Though I must say that Frankenstein seems kinda muddled, rather than gratifyingly complex, as a character, alternately coming across as more humane than everyone else and horrifically sadistic (or at least amoral). Also, why does he not reanimate after being killed? Did I miss a head shot?

Anyway, those misgivings aside, all of the lab-coat stuff rules, and Romero once again somehow found surprisingly solid unknown actors (none of whom ever went on to notable careers) for his leads. Well, not all of them, maybe, but I very much liked Lori Cardille's matter-of-fact toughness as Bowman, and Sherman Howard, in what's essentially a silent-era performance, successfully walks a tricky line between comic and poignant. Richard Liberty seems to have been more divisive, but his cheery, jargon-heavy volubility reminded me of Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown (though that comparison may well have been triggered by my knowledge that Day of the Dead and Back to the Future were released on the same day, at least in New York). What doesn't really work here is the martial-law dynamic, which unfortunately also takes up half of the running time. I can appreciate that Romero was tweaking Reagan's budget priorities, but in practice there's way too much unmodulated shouting and posturing*, and it's a bit disappointing—at least in the context of these movies—to see a class of characters behave so atrociously that we're actively rooting for them to be eaten alive. At the same time, though, Bub vs. Rhodes makes for a genuinely satisfying conventional showdown, and I'd be lying if I claimed not to have been #TeamBub all the way. Maybe I should now revisit Land (which I haven't seen since, despite owning the DVD; it's still just hanging onto my 2005 top 10 list), if only to get a better sense of how each installment pivots from the last. Not sitting through Diary again, though. (I skipped Survival.)  

* I'm also amazed that Romero left in the unintentionally hilarious moment when Joseph Pilato, tasked with delivering the line "We need his ass" (referring to John, the helicopter pilot), for some reason places the stress thusly: "We need his ass." That's a different movie.