Chapter three of George Romero's mighty zombie trilogy has big footsteps to follow. Night of the Living Dead was a classic that revitalized a certain corner of the cinema, and Dawn of the Dead was nothing short of epic. Day of the Dead, however, has always been regarded as a comedown compared to those twin peaks--and perhaps it is. But on its own terms, this is an awfully effective horror movie, made with Romero's customary social satire and cinematic vigor--when a "retrained" zombie responds to the "Ode to Joy," the film is in genuinely haunting territory. The story is set inside a sunken military complex, where Army and medical staff, supposedly working on a solution to the zombie problem, are going crazy (strongly foreshadowing the final act of 28 Days Later). Tom Savini's makeup effects could make even hardcore gore fans tear off their own heads in amazement. --Robert Horton

This movie is an absorbing symbolic depiction of the initial public response to HIV/AIDS--emphatically making unreasonable demands on scientists, who respond by overhyping the immediate value and scope of their work, which all scientists do anyway. Dr. Logan has a plausible strategy. An army of Bubs trained to protect live humans and shoot undomesticated zombies in the head could in principle have solved the whole problem and saved humanity since other zombies would not attack them (zombies only go for live and recently-dead people). But it's unworkable for reasons which become obvious. This sort of thing has a technical name: "Proof-of-Principle". Sometimes, more-conscientious scientists phrase their proposals as efforts to study obstacles to solving a problem rather than as efforts to solve the problem. And sometimes the outcome is good, if the obstacles are few and solvable like the thermoinstability of DNA Polymerase which made PCR impractical until they cloned the thermostable polymerase from ocean-floor hot-springs organisms. Too often it's an excuse for relegating obvious critical impracticalities to the world-changers of the future.

Among the worst offenders of "Proof-of-Principle" and the closely related "Even-if-it's-useless-it's-still-basic-science" argument today is the collective of industrial and academic scams called Gene Therapy. It's based on the plausible-sounding idea that we can genetically program cells in our bodies to make good proteins, by putting artificial DNA into them, the way we program cells in flasks to do. Without screwing things up worse. Even though we have almost no ability to modify the genomes of live multicellular organisms except in a random, non-directed fashion. We can control which genes go in but not where in the genome they go. It gets less and less plausible the longer you go on.

Anyway, the exchange between Captain Rhodes and Dr. Logan also sums up the point of the trilogy nicely: "Civility must be rewarded, Captain. If it's not rewarded, there's no use for it. There's just no use for it at all!" That's George Romero's total essence in one line, including other movies like THE CRAZIES and MONKEY SHINES.

This movie contains at least FOUR world-class character-acting demonstrations: Joe Pilato as Captain Rhodes, G. Howard Klar as Steele, Richard Liberty as Dr. Logan, and Howard Sherman as Bub. These make up for poor work in the protagonists' roles. In fact the good guys are the main problem with this flick. They're too good; except for token weaknesses there's nothing objectionable or even less-than-saintly about any of them. You never wonder what they're gonna do or say next--it's always the most good-guy possible thing. They face the facts, intercede for others, spare their enemies, and martyr themselves. Mr. Spock himself was not so goody-goody. Where are the ambiguous, flawed good guys who made the previous two chapters of the trilogy so interesting-? The protagonists of DAWN have no problem waging lusty semi-comedic war against the biker invaders, and even Ben (the black truck-driver in NotLD) kills his (live) enemy in righteous anger. In this one we get John the pilot instead. The only black character is also the superstitious anti-rationalist who wants to find a desert island and loaf, without even keeping a calendar. A veritable noble savage. Pardon me for being PC but I expect something less ham-handed from Romero.

So it's a flawed masterpiece but everyone interested in medical technology and society should see it. In fact all students of any health-care profession should see it. Oh yeah, the torn-to-pieces-by-zombies scenes are very effective too, and Tom Savini should get an award just for the make-up on the elderly female zombie who gets loose and bites someone. She is about as scary and repulsive as anything I've ever seen on screen.

Day of the Dead (Divimax Special Edition)
Loved this version of a classic zombie movie, very exciting from the very start! Like the idea of people trying to domesticate a dead person, if you can't stop them, use them....great!

Keep in mind I'm reviewing the dvd not the film.

As for as the dvd goes I say it was great transfer. The first disc contains the film and commentaries by Romero, Lori Cardille, Tom Savini, and Cletus Anderson. There is also another commnetary by fellow Day fan Roger Avary.

Now the second disc it contains all the trailers and tv spots(as I know). Poster, Advertising, Behind the Scenes, Production stills, Memorabilia galleries, and also a zombie make-up gallery included(shows how nasty those Day zombies are up close!). A interview with Richard Liberty(before he died), a Wampum Mine Promotional Video where Day of the Dead was filmed and of course the 39 minute The Many Days of the Dead doc(Very informative it is!)

There is also a 31 minute behind the scenes production footage with Tom Savini. Shows you the transformation of the extras to the gruesome zombies they become in Day.

The only reason I knocked a point of is because of that. Since this is the Ultimate Edition of the Day you would think they would get all of the production footage with Savini which is 4.5 hours long(which could be found at ebay at times) but, nope they only got 31 mins of it.

Oh well. I recommend this 2-disc special of Day of the Dead only if your a fan of the film or the Dead trilogy in general.

My favorite of Romero's "Dead" series, and my favorite zombie flick of all time. This is the movie I compare every zombie flick I watch to. The scene where Rhodes has his head torn off is one of the best scenes in any movie ever.

The overall atmosphere of the film is disturbing, and its alot less light hearted than "Dawn."

If you're a self proclaimed zombie fanatic, and you for some reason don't own this disc, pick it up today!

9/10

First and foremost, I would like to thank my Amazon friend J-Train for recommending this sublime zombie movie to me. It truly blew away what I thought of zombie movies. This is a great film, that was unfairly panned by film critics and other people who gave it low review scores. This film, in my opinion is George A. Romero's true zombie-horror masterpiece.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: It's about a group of survivors who live in an old missile silo working on research for domestication and possibly a cure for the zombie infection. There is a lot of tension between the survivors that gets so bad they threaten each other with weapons and interfere with the research. An insane dictator-like leader has taken over command of the silo and despises anyone who opposes him. The main characters also have their own problems between each other, hope to find a cure, and leave the hellhole they reside in. This film is focused more on great dialogue than zombie gore, but it's assembled in a superbly crafted fashion.
MUSIC: This music is a mix between crappy and good. I can't tell if I like it or hate it. This is ultimately the low point of the film.
GORE FACTOR: This film is gorier than many zombie films even to this day. I let out more than a few "EEEWW" remarks because the gore looked more graphic and far more disgusting than Dawn of the Dead. You too will probably be disgusted by the gore as well.
ENTERTAINMENT: This film is great and truly awesome as a zombie movie. If you like zombie movies there is no reason to overlook it in any way. This film has great dialogue and tension between the characters, disgustingly graphic gore, and characters you truly care about. This film must have had a good enough impact to influence later zombie films like Resident Evil because I spotted some of the similarities between them, not much but some ideas were borrowed from this movie.
OVERALL: This film has a great story for a zombie movie, but unfortunately it's not on par with Resident Evil's storyline, but it's close. This is a fantastic zombie-horror classic that should not be overlooked like it was when it released those many years ago.
THE GOOD: Great story, great characters, good dialogue, disgusting gore, and good zombie designs.
THE BAD: The music is not very good, the film is a bit slow in the beginning.
P.S.: J-Train, you must now go watch the Resident Evil trilogy! I loved your recommendation and I hope you love the Resident Evil films as much as I do! Oh, but be warned about watching the Day of the Dead remake, it's not even like the original at all. It's basically an entirely different zombie movie.