THE REAL THREAT IS OUR FLAWS, NOT THE MONSTERS WANTING TO TEAR AT OUR FLESH: 'DAY OF THE DEAD' (1985)

George A. Romero surrounded by undead extras on the set of Day of the Dead. Credit: Laurel Entertainment Inc

George A. Romero (1940 - 2017) was a radical filmmaker who was sharply observant and had profound insight and understanding. His biting socio-political commentaries in his allegorical zombie horror films were accurately representative of their respective decades. He had guts and vision.

Romero’s horde of once human creatures - the slow-walking and flesh-eating undead - in Night of the Living Dead (1968), were more than just cyphers used simply as scary devices. He articulated his knowledge and thoughts by filling their vessels with symbolic meanings to convey his messages. What is frightening is not the mysterious phenomenon of the zombie epidemic, but the bleak backdrop and its underlying issues: government and media failings, the fears caused by Cold War paranoia, the ongoing Vietnam War, and the turmoil that came from the domestic racism and race riots. 

Dawn of the Dead (1978) is George A. Romero’s cynical and damning satire on society’s superficial materialistic obsession with consumer culture, and its distinct lack of concern with cultural, intellectual, and spiritual values. This time the commentary and the flesh-munching zombie horror are meshed with offbeat tongue-in-cheek humour. This is unlike the gruelling pessimism of its predecessor, which Romero would return to for the next instalment in his Of the Dead saga.

Much has been made about how George A. Romero was forced to write an abbreviated version of Day of the Dead. The writer/director had a grand vision for an almost three-hour post-apocalyptic zombie epic. While the finished film is more small-scale than Romero initially envisioned, as it is structured like a tragic play, it turned out to be some of his most reflective work, and he considered it his personal favourite of the series.

George A. Romero and producer Richard P. Rubinstein’s production company, Laurel Entertainment, made a three-picture deal with United Film Distribution Company (UFDC), after their phenomenally successful unrated release of Dawn of the Dead. The head of UFDC, Salah M. Hassanein (1921 - 2019), made the condition that one of these pictures had to be a sequel to it. Romero and Rubinstein did not feel immediate pressure to develop the follow-up, so they decided to work on the other two projects first. Action drama Knightriders (1981) is a unique personal piece about a traveling troupe of motorcycle jousters, which does not have mass-commercial appeal, and only works for a niche audience, so it was a financial disappointment. While the horror comedy anthology, Creepshow (1982), written by Stephen King, is the polar opposite in terms of attracting a mainstream audience, and was a hit, it was sold to Hollywood studio Warner Bros., so they reaped most of the profits. Salah M. Hassanein had promised George A. Romero a $7 million budget for Day of the Dead, but due to the lack of financial success with the previous two productions, and with minimal funds left, Hassanein was unwilling to take the risk, unless Romero made an R-rated cut.

This is why George A. Romero did rewrites in order to make an affordable and more graphic independent horror feature. He did away with the extravagant locales and set the story in a single location, omitted the elaborate action set pieces, and wrote out some characters and amalgamated others. It did not negatively affect the essence of Day of the Dead: the message in its cautionary tale. The low budget of half as much - $3.5 million - allowed for a harder unrated version that Romero knew the fans would want to see, due to the unrated release of Dawn of the Dead. Maybe if he had shot Day of the Dead first, we would have got what he originally planned, but he considered the finished film to be better. He would use some of his scrapped ideas for his far bigger-budgeted Universal production, Land of the Dead (2005), which is not as good of a film. Therefore, was George A. Romero’s vision truly compromised?

The far lower budget allowed for a far more graphic version of Day of the Dead. Credit: Laurel Entertainment Inc

The bleak setting and situation serves as a microcosm of Romero’s dark themes: the breakdown of communication; the societal collapse; and the fear of an unregulated government and its abuse of power, and that it will form a fascist state, which will be enforced by its military thugs. This is more relevant than ever.

Day of the Dead is dialogue heavy, with memorable and quotable lines delivered by committed actors, who portray a mixed bag of sympathetic and unsympathetic characters.

The dead continue to feast on the flesh of the living, and have overtaken the entire world. Only fragments of the U.S. government remains. They are forced into hiding in fortified bases and colonies, while scientists desperately try to find a cure for the zombie pandemic. In the hellish claustrophobic isolation of a dark and dank underground mine installation in Fort Myers, Florida, a group of scientists are doing just this by experimenting on zombies, and are supervised by soldiers for protection. This is a quickly put together operation, and they were thrown together in the most extreme of circumstances. The tensions between these two factions reach boiling point due to their contrasting views on civilisation’s grim predicament.

When the military detachment’s major dies, the film’s antagonist - the narrow-minded, authoritarian, and increasingly mentally unhinged, Captain Rhodes (Joseph Pilato, 1949 - 2019) - takes over. Rhodes does not believe in what the scientists are doing, so he puts immense pressure on them, and is impossible to be reasoned with. He just wants to destroy the zombies and leave with his hostile troops. Worst of all, he threatens the scientists’ lives.

One of the scientists, the only female character, Sarah (Lori Cardille), is a voice of reason, and represents humanity’s last strands of moral fibre. Sarah is intelligent and strong, and is George A. Romero’s continued apology for his own criticism of the weak characterization of Barbara in Night of the Living Dead. This rectification began with Francine in Dawn of the Dead. But Sarah is made to feel incredibly vulnerable due to the added pressure of having to deal with her lover, Miguel (Anthony Dileo Jr., 1956 - 2025), who is one of the soldiers, as he is mentally deteriorating, and is becoming a threat to the safety of everyone.

When Rhodes and his men find out that chief scientist, Logan (Richard Liberty, 1932 - 2000), whom they have nicknamed ‘Frankenstein’, has been using dead soldiers for his experiments and for zombie food, matters become dire. Sarah, and John (Terry Alexander), the helicopter pilot, and McDermott (Jarlath Conroy), the radio operator, find themselves in a dangerous struggle for survival. This escalates when Miguel lets in the zombies.

"... the film’s antagonist - the narrow-minded, authoritarian, and increasingly mentally unhinged, Captain Rhodes ..." played by Joseph Pilato. Credit: Laurel Entertainment Inc

Instead of doing what they are supposed to do, by reaching a compromise and working together, to deal with not only what threatens their lives, but the lives of what is left of the human race, they ravage each other. Their breakdown in communication and their intense infighting conveys that we are our own worst enemies who will be hopelessly incapable of dealing with a crisis that will destroy our existence. Humankind’s flaws are exposed when facing extinction. This is a tale of flawed human behaviour in a small pocket of a huge apocalyptic landscape, but it can take just one group of people working together to solve the entire world’s problems, so this is why it is a tragedy of such magnitude.

The humans tear each other apart, figuratively, and the zombies tear them apart, literally. As the undead evolve, human civilization crumbles in their wake. This is a revolution, as a new society is coming in and devouring (again, literally) the fragile old, which no longer deserve their placing, and are incapable of handling it.

They pay the price, as it culminates in a potently explicit splatterfest. Romero’s more gore the better approach far exceeds the carnage seen in the first two zombie films he made in the 1960s and 1970s. The filmmaker’s eye on the times is as observant as ever and perfectly exemplifies 1980s excess, with a gorehound’s wet dream. The undead rip apart human bodies and chow down on the flesh with every morsel and bite captured in lucid detail, and there are viscera aplenty. This is intense imagery and shocking gore cinema.

This is the groundbreaking work of SFX maestro Tom Savini, who easily bests his work in Dawn of the Dead. His gift for creating vividly realistic special make-up effects peaked here with his magnum opus outside of the slasher sub-genre he is most associated with. Savini’s care in his craft is meticulous, in realizing the greatest-looking decaying flesh eaters of zombie horror, with an enormous amount of prosthetics used. Every single one of this legion of undead extras stands out with their unique appearances and characteristics, and are the most unforgettable zombies ever to shuffle across the silver screen.

Side note: Tom Savini’s best work in slasher horror is arguably in Joseph Zito’s The Prowler (Rosemary’s Killer, 1981).

The lovable Bub (Sherman Howard) is just one of "... the most unforgettable zombies ever to shuffle across the silver screen." Credit: Laurel Entertainment Inc 

With the exceptions of the opening sequence set on the streets of Florida and the finale set in the facility, the zombie hordes are pushed aside, as George A. Romero focuses on human and undead relations. The guinea pigs in Logan’s experiments are handled like cattle with collars on sticks, are chained to the walls, and are tested on to see if there is still some cognitive thinking; still some humanity left inside. Logan is more interested in trying to understand the zombies, and taming them, so they can be domesticated and trained for human use, rather than find a cure for the pandemic. His gentle pet that he has named Bub (Sherman Howard) represents the evolution of his kind as they are now starting to learn and think for themselves. They are becoming smarter and, therefore, more dangerous.

Logan’s desire to teach the lovable Bub in his theory that zombies can be controlled for coexistence shows us that we are capable of being human. But this is extinguished by the brutality of the loathsome Captain Rhodes. He embodies everything that is cruel about humankind with his fascist leanings, and we long for him to get his comeuppance, which is foreshadowed during his first meeting with Bub.

John and McDermott are quintessentially ’80s, as they do not give a fuck. They do not believe in what the scientists are doing either, and just want to get away to spend what time they have left soaking up some sun. However, they step up when they are forced to, and Sarah, John, and McDermott help each other. All three of them are likable, and have a camaraderie, which dispels the criticisms of the film that it only has unlikable characters and is devoid of humour, as opposed to Dawn of the Dead. Terry Alexander as John delivers a striking monologue with some of Romero’s most poetic writing. It perfectly encapsulates his message that it is in our nature to destroy each other and our time has come.

Composer John Harrison’s Carpenter-esque synth soundtrack is the most atmospheric of the Of the Dead series, and is yet another reason why Day of the Dead is an irresistible watch.

If the film has one issue, it is that it does not feel believable that there is a romance between Sarah and Miguel. Their relationship is unconvincing due to how aesthetically mismatched the couple are and the zero chemistry between the actors Lori Cardille and Anthony Dileo Jr.

John (Terry Alexander), Sarah (Lori Cardille), and McDermott (Jarlath Conroy) fight for survival against the military thugs and the horde of the undead. Credit: Laurel Entertainment Inc 

The theatrical release of Day of the Dead was a crushing disappointment: its promotional campaign was uninspired and lacklustre and it received limited distribution, and faced criticism from critics and fans alike for its angrier and more downbeat tone compared to the sense of adventure and comic relief in Dawn of the Dead. But Day of the Dead has become a cult classic. It became a financial success thanks to its home video releases on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray, grossing $34 million worldwide. As more generations were born, the film’s reputation would significantly improve. Many critics and fans now consider it their personal favourite of George A. Romero’s Of the Dead saga, including myself.

Day of the Dead is Romero at his most philosophical. While it is a scathing misanthropic commentary on our inherent flaws, he was trying to teach us to do better, as he felt deeply sad for us all.

© 2026 Dave J. Wilson. All rights reserved.

Credit: Laurel Entertainment Inc