more on DAY OF THE DEAD
A, uh, seventh look!

  (SPOILER-heavy - this isn't really a review.  Oh, and it's REALLY long, my longest post ever at 4547 words, actually, so just keep this in mind when it looks like I'm calling this a bad movie; would I really write this much about a movie I thought was definitely bad?)

I love being surprised.  Well, except for those "there is a 99.999943% probability that you are the father" surprises, I hate that shit.  But, I swear to God, when I posted my original review for George Romero's Day Of The Dead, I had absolutely no idea it was as widely high-regarded as it appears to be.

From left and right came wails of horror that decried my perceived panning of the film.  (and it wasn't even really a pan - no movie I actually dislike would I see this many times, and I made clear in the review that it's a film that I have no small amount of affection for)  I can't tell you how...unexpected it all was! I'm tellin' you, my grin was HUGE.  Even if it's wails of horror, it's nice to spark passion in people.

Hell, this movie doesn't just have supporters - the praise showered upon it was unlike any I'd ever been led to expect from anything I'd read previously from you all.  "Stunningly good filmmaking that remains the best thing that Romero has ever done." "The last serious horror film." "A masterpiece." "The best installment in the Dead trilogy." (to say nothing of the Doc's then newly-installed "There's no accounting for taste" button on his keyboard, these days unreliable from overuse and looking at possible replacement by a Fulci-quote-o-matic)  And for over a decade, I'd been thoroughly convinced that it was most widely regarded - by fans casual, fans rabid, and critics inside and outside the genre  - as the half-aborted Dead movie that coulda shoulda woulda, maybe almost, but didn't.  Even the people I know who like the movie generally agree that it was a step down in the series' quality, start their statements of affection for the film with an apology, and make frequent laments about what could've been had Romero been allowed to work with the budget to film the movie he wanted to.

Watching movies that are hailed as classics is often a difficult exercise, especially when I sit there staring at the screen wondering what the hell y'all are smoking.  Sometimes it just makes my disdain for the film that much more intense - if I watch Hellraiser again, there'd better be sex in it for me.  Sometimes it puts me off the film but allows me to come back, a long while later, looking for something other than the timeless classic I was led to look for in the first place (Zombie - a classic, no.  A kick-ass zombie movie...maybe, I'll letcha know whenever I get around to giving it another look, but I ain't holding my breath).  But this is a first - I sat through this movie six times before I'd heard ANY claims that it was a classic.  And when the claims came, they came fast and furious.  Very strange, but still, it's fun to be surprised.  None of those six times that I watched this movie left me with any desire to give it another look immediately (though it does seem to spark my curiosity for a peek at intervals, doesn't it?).  But the nigh-outraged response here, well, if that's not reason enough for a more detailed look, I don't know what is.  Except maybe if there's sex in it for me. (There wasn't.)

So the other night, I sat down, cracked open a cold one (yuck!  Wildcat?!?!?), and gave Day Of The Dead yet another look, as I said a detailed look, with an ear to those praises sung for it.  Not that I really expected it to be a brand-new experience on the seventh go, but it's good to view things with fresh eyes now and then.

And what I got was what I expected - the same movie I've always been seeing, with a little new appreciation for some parts, and a little new disdain for others.  It's a movie with hints at great potential, much of it dashed with, well, sheer idiocy, whether it's intentional or not, it's hard to care.  Romero may have had to scale down his vision, but that's a lousy excuse for DUMBING it down. (it may be that I'm giving his original vision - and I've never read the script - too much credit in my assumption.  It may be that the smarts weren't scaled down at all - and that would be even more disappointing.)

Night Of The Living Dead is almost pure thriller; a horror film that exists to scare the crap out of you and carried no aspirations of social significance (though it would bear that anyway).  Horror history was never the same after it.  With Dawn Of The Dead, Romero chose to put the thrills of Night forth with about equal emphasis as some not exactly subtle philosophizing.  The result was almost universally hailed as a success; sure, there are detractors (Mike, this is where you jump in), but I'm not one of them; for my money, Dawn juggled a lot of elements as dextrously as could be asked of it, and if it's too much of a good thing at 140 minutes, there are a lot worse faults it could've had.

But with Day Of The Dead, Romero has constructed a film with the thriller angle almost completely eliminated to make room for some even more ham-handed philosophizing.  Oh, there's nothing wrong with that; man cannot live on thrills alone.  And when you look at the shift from Night to Dawn, it seems clear that that's where this series was inevitably heading.  One might hope for this approach to be in the form of something more compelling than taking a nugget of an idea and screaming it out repeatedly as if that would better make the point.

Unfortunately, Day Of The Dead turned out to be a movie that, for all its wind, had very little to say, and most of it, Romero had said before in its predecessors.  Lacking in thrills, Day Of The Dead isn't much of a thriller, and lacking much to say, it fails to horrify.

That Day is a poor thriller is not really a fair criticism; it's like complaining that The Godfather didn't have enough FX shots.  The movie is what it is, and one should not hold against it that it does not achieve that to which it does not aspire.  But there are things it does aspire to, and that it fails at them is more worthy of attention.

If there's anything that Day seems to want to say - and believe me, it says it again and again and again, so to miss this point would be nearly impossible - it's that people are selfish and arrogant and they'll usually selfish and arrogant themselves right into the grave.  Day takes about fifteen minutes to make that point.  Then it proceeds to go on for another eighty-five, making the same point, again and again, like an ill-behaved child writing lines on the chalkboard after school.

Now, seventeen years before, Night took quite a bit longer to make this exact point, but it did eventually make it and make it clear.  Additionally, the conclusion gave us a twofold kick-in-the-nuts irony; not only is the sole survivor killed by the very people who probably think they're trying to rescue us normal humans, but (and this part's greatly reinforced by the first irony) if you look back in the film, the odds are pretty good that if the characters all picked one course of action (be it stay upstairs and hold the whole house, or barricade themselves in the basement), and ALL worked toward achieving that end, they probably would've been okay, and we'd have had a (gasp!) happy ending.  But they squabbled, they bickered, they went their separate ways, and they died, when they didn't have to.

Day has no such point-making conclusion, especially seeing as how it's point is being made repeatedly over its running length.  Actually, if anything, the conclusion of Day seems never in doubt; after those first fifteen minutes are up, it's pretty clear that even the happiest of endings for this movie is still going to be something pretty bleak, like, oh, maybe a few MORE years in the cavern for everybody.  (some may argue that the ending we're given, which appears to be meant to FEEL happy, is plenty happier than this, but think about it.  These three people are on this island, with no way to refuel the chopper, they have no medical facilities at all [except what first-aid material was already in the chopper], the drunk guy doesn't have any liquor left...sure, they get more sunshine and they don't have to put up with the military guys anymore, but I wouldn't say they're any better off)  The roster of surviving characters is certainly rarely in doubt; of the three survivors at the end, only one comes as a surprise; the other two are the only genuinely sympathetic people in a big pack of idiots and nobodies.

Idiots and nobodies.  Give me a movie that asks me to be interested in the affairs of intelligent people, and a movie that asks me to be interested in the affairs of morons and stereotypes, and thank you, I'll take that first movie.  Day Of The Dead offers up eleven human characters, four of which aren't even given names (hence the nobodies).  Take away the two sympathetic ones, and we've got nothing but morons left.

That there is possibly my most serious, relentlessly unavoidable problem with the movie - it's about stupid people, people who make stupid decisions and say stupid things, and all we see is the stupid ways they interact with each other.  Stupidity can be amusing (though it isn't here, despite Romero's attempts at humor).  But it's hardly ever dramatically compelling. (notable exception: A Simple Plan, because it was about an intelligent and decreasingly upstanding man who makes decisions to cover up the mistakes of a couple of idiots)

Let's take a look at this particular stack of idiots, nobodies and stereotypes.

The people in this subterranean cavern (for a plot summary, go to the IMDb or read my original review or something; hell, if you haven't seen the film, reading this ain't gonna be of interest to you) are divided into three groups. First, the good scientists (one wacky exception), the force behind an increasing pool of knowledge which is becoming increasingly impossible to implement.  There's also the evil military, whose muscle is just as useless in this new reality, and aren't taking well to it.  And then there is the mostly neutral helicopter pilot and tech guy.  Scientists first, since they've got the best batting average of being intelligent and/or interesting.

Lori Cardille, as I keep saying and can't say enough, is astoundingly good as Sarah, the intellectual and moral center of the film.  She gets good material to work with, plays it well, and makes us understand the pain behind her decisions and her plight.  There's not much to point out here; if this movie could be carried on one person's shoulders alone, her own would be most up for the task, but I don't think it could have been done.  Actually, I find myself wondering if, were this performance in a better film, I would be as enthusiastic about it.

Richard Liberty is interesting in his role as the mad Dr. Logan, though the script does him no favors with a number of dumb moments for him, particularly the revelation late in the film that he's insane.  Driven and energetic, we knew.  Mildly irritable, way too much of a stickler to the adage "waste not, want not", absolutely (although he's a little haphazard; note his casual destruction of one hard-to-get-hold-of zombie specimen for acting up too much).  Making him insane was silly, especially the dumb way it's revealed in the form of his inexplicably self-recorded blather to his mother. Gimme a break; really, it's stupid throwaway writing/plotting on a par with "Leia!  Leia is my sister!".  I liked this guy up until this scene, which sadly ruins him.

And there's a third guy, totally invisible in a role whose name is never even mentioned, a character who says and does absolutely nothing of any consequence.  If this were a slasher movie, you'd know that that makes him the slasher.  It isn't, it's a zombie movie (sort of), so it just makes him dead.  When he's finally killed, it's just kind of disappointing that the zombies didn't do it instead, and in more eye-catching fashion.  Basically, the only reason he's here is so that John (more on him in a sec) can look over at his stiffening carcass and think, in a rather belabored sequence, that he should not reduce himself to the level of his enemy.  (groooan)

(mea culpa - turns out that this guy's name actually is given in the film, four times.  Not sure how I could've missed it, since I was listening pretty closely for exactly that, but hey, maybe I just smoked some bad crack that day.  At any rate, I don't think the fact that he has a name really changes anything; he's still nobody, and he's still only here to die.)

On to those neutral boys - John (Terry Alexander) and McDermott (Jarlath Conroy).  John, the only non-insane character in the film who is halfways to enjoying life under these new circumstances, is the only character other than Sarah who's even the slightest bit likeable.  It's nice to see people making the best of bad situations, ain't it?  John livens things up a little when he's onscreen, his Jamaican accent (probably the only "bright" spot in this movie, sonically, except maybe the enthusiastic voice of Dr. Logan) only helping things, God knows he wouldn't have been half as likeable if he was played with deadly straight-faced and -voiced seriousness.  John is also the only person down there with a real perspective; he knows the score on both sides, and isn't blinded by his "duty" as either a scientist or a soldier.  Sure, he's a little too close to being a Luddite with his fear-of-knowledge hypothesizing that the zombies might have come because man was Delving Into Areas Which He Was Not Meant To Understand.  Put him up against the rest of these losers, and even the Luddite guy starts looking pretty reasonable.  Actually, when you compare him to everyone else, John is the only character in the movie who demonstrates even the slightest usefulness!  The scientists accomplish nothing, the military fails at everything, and even the tech guy doesn't do anything.  At least the pilot knows how to fly, and does.

With an off-and-on Irish accent, a greasy swarthiness and an inseparability from his flask to make the stereotype complete, Conroy is irritating but not fatally so the way, say, Rickles is.  I fully expected this guy to die - and thus the survivor roster in this particular cast provides its only surprise. (although that he'll symbolically give up his drinking before the end of the film is a gimme)  Conroy even slips in some dumb one-liners, which feel drastically out of place ("Temporarily out of service!").

And finally, we come to the military - useless military muscle, indeed, since during the course of the film, the only thing we see them do in their military capacity (removing a zombie from the corral, twice) is royally screwed up, both times.  Once, it's better accomplished by one of the scientists!

Of the seven military guys in the film (the headless zombie carcass of the dead commander doesn't count), three of them don't even get names.  I heard the name "Johnson" somewhere in there, but it's hard to tell who it's directed to.  Those three get so little screen time that I found myself unable even to assign labels to them to remember them by (like, say, "Beard-guy", or "guy with shirt on head").  It's awfully hard to feel anything one way or another when they die ugly, much less when Steele is forced to shoot one of them before he zombifies.

Then there's Miguel, played by Antone DiLeo.  He spends most of his screen time crying, so I guess he's the sensitive one.  He doesn't demonstrate much in the way of personality, so it's kind of up to the viewer's imagination to figure on just why Sarah, who could've chosen any guy on that base, would choose to shack up with him.  There's nothing really wrong with this character, per se; the way he's reacting to the world around him is understandable, even if it's ultimately used mostly for his totally insane climactic decision to "flood" the cavern with zombies from above.  (remind me not to date anybody who's likely to do that to me)  The problem is, he, himself, isn't compelling in the least.  Sarah is, and Cardille makes her relationship with him work dramatically, no thanks to him.  His most powerful moments are when he's unconscious; yeesh, what does that tell ya?

Inseparable, both in the film and the discussion of it, are Rickles (Ralph Marrero) and Steele (Gary Howard Klar). Totally loathsome from every angle, they're engineered to bring out the boos and hisses of all, and while I like boo-hiss villains when they're done well, these two idiots are too pathetic to be frightening, too lame to be funny, too vile and inane to be likeable in that you-love-to-hate-'em way.  These two get some of the most moronic dialogue I've ever heard; I've heard wittier banter from Limp Bizkit. They cackle out sexual leers and racial slurs all over the place (I always thought "yellow" meant Asian, not Hispanic, but what the hell do I know, there are only seven or eight Hispanics in western Canada), attempt to murder other soldiers, basically annoy the shit out of characters and viewers alike...all while making it through the entire film without demonstrating a single intelligent or noble characteristic.  Not one!  Really, that's quite astounding.  I know, I know...it's the POINT that they're idiots.  One scene, I got that point.  Expectedly, the movie goes on to make that point with every scene they're in, never expanding on it, never resolving it, just repeating it.

Rickles is extra-annoying with that cackling laugh of his ("She's got herself an honest-to-God DICK to get off on!!!  HA HA!!!  HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! YEEEEHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"), but Steele is particularly stupid; yeah, I know it's an old zombie-movie cliché that people who are otherwise familiar with the zombies continue to shoot them in uselessly in the torsos when only a head shot will do anything. But this one ranks particularly dumb amongst the clichés; besides, don't you think that this guy, who works with zombies every single day, would know better?  If he'd just been thrust into this situation recently, hey, I could understand.  But as it is, no.

And then, of course, there's Captain Rhodes (Joseph Pilato).  That he's ill-prepared for the command thrust upon him by the death of his previous CO is understandable, but exactly how did this loser make Captain?  He commands respect from his men only by pointing a gun at them (an incident his men seem to instantly forget), he has zero loyalty to said men (taking a golf cart which seats four at the end of the film and driving off, leaving three of his men behind - so why's he so pissed off about Logan's unauthorized test subjects?), and is a COMPLETE failure at keeping his men even slightly in line or in working shape.  He failure to comprehend even in the slightest what his mission is reveals itself in one scene where he complains "Where does it say we should do any one thing except shoot the (zombies) in the head?" (whether this is an illustration of Rhodes' stupidity/confusion, or if it's just a dumb, poorly-written line, I don't know, and can't care) And he seems like a lousy driver, packing up in that golf cart to drive directly away from the zombies, but somehow managing to pass several and hit one even though he's clearly outrunning them. (again, bad driving or bad editing?  Who cares?)

Oh, make no mistake, the character's fun in his own icky way; Pilato hams it up well, even stroking his chin evilly when he suggests that Sarah "give the rest of us a shot at some lovin'".  (I wish he had a mustache there so he could twirl it and cackle with fiendish glee)  The scene where he commands Steele to shoot Sarah is even accompanied by music which isn't too far removed from the descending brass hits of "DUNT DUNT DUUUUUUUNT!!!!" which is the musical signature of villainy everywhere.

So, out of seven military guys, three are villains, three are nobody at all, and one spends all of his screen time crying.  Is Romero trying to tell us something?  If it's any statement more sophisticated than "The military is horrible!", I don't see it.  All I see is a military who's incapable of performing even basic tasks.  Hey, I don't really ask for the military to be anything but well-trained and well-disciplined people that are good at carrying out orders.  Nobody here shows any evidence of being any of those things; just slobs, idiots, fools and big babies, really.  Yeah, they're in a horrible situation where they're seeing their comrades die, but why do you think the damn twits are dying?  Because the jobs they undertake are best not undertaken by slobs, idiots, fools, and big babies, and the aforementioned scenes at the corral prove that.  None of these drooling idiots suggest to me in the slightest that they were EVER qualified for this job, or any job; I don't think these guys could be trusted to breathe regularly without being reminded.

I know, I know - I sound like I'm bashing this movie completely.  (reading back) Oh wait, I am.  But still, it's a movie I find interesting enough to check out about once a year or so.  This viewing did make vanish a longtime annoyance I've had with this film, when John refers to the cave as "a 14-mile tombstone".  Obviously, he means a tomb, right?  A tombstone is very different.  Ah, but not in the context of what he was talking about a moment before.  This bugged me for years; good to see it wasn't the total mess it's always sounded like.  (irrelevant trivia: in the song "Jotun", In Flames makes reference to "a 22-kilometer tombstone".  They use the metric system in Sweden, the real question is, why don't they in the States?  Anyways, do the math; 14 miles is...that's right.  The song's subject matter seems not inappropriate, too...great song.  I love this band!)

I've also warmed up to the costuming of some zombies at the end.  A football zombie, a bride zombie...I mean, please, who holds a full-on football practice/game (let alone a dress-n-everything wedding) with all this crap going on?  Ah, but remember the lesson from Dawn...the zombies do what they did in life.  If you were engaged with all this crap going on and you had big hopes for your wedding until this happened, you'd probably still be fixated on it postmortally.

And with this new appreciation for these bits comes, as if to balance things out, problems with other lines.  What's with that scene where Rickles essentially compliments Steel on the size of his penis?  Does this ring true to you at all?  Similarly problematic is the first scene in the zombie-overrun public streets, which has its intended effect on the first viewing but feels like nonsense down the line (what's all that money doing STILL together? How long has this been going on that "THE DEAD WALK!" is still a paper-selling headline?  Why don't they do fly-bys where they won't be nabbed by zombies?).

If the movie shows strong promise in any one area, it's got to be with the zombies themselves.  And it's not just in their fantastic realization from Tom Savini (the grue here is some of the most disgustingly realistic I've ever seen).  It kind of figures that in a zombie movie with so little screen time for the zombies, there'd be such good ideas ABOUT the zombies.  The zombies are still us, no doubt 'bout that, but they're something else as well; they're unsocialized.  (or, more properly, de-socialized)  They're us, but us BEFORE we learned to be civilized.  Perhaps the ultimate nihilists, they exist only to exist, living on instinct for lack of any other motivation for anything, even continuing to eat though their digestive tract has been removed, not for nourishment but because that's what they're programmed to do.

The only zombie we see with any amount of concentration is Bub (Howard Sherman).  Bub is kind of annoying in that he's an unnecessarily sentimental touch in the film; he's like this movie's Jar-Jar Binks, but there are some interesting ideas at work here.  Bub is, after all, the only zombie in the trilogy that ever, even for a moment, seems satisfied, and even if it's just because he's sinking to his lowest "human" tendencies (the mock-salute flip-off to the dying Rhodes), that's still pretty neat.

I described this movie, in my original review, as "slow, tiresome, bleak, annoying, sad, cruel...".  It was later said in the deluge of dissenting posts that followed that I "identified three of the adjectives that describe why this film is so great; bleak, sad and cruel".  To this, I can only react with some sadness.  If this was what it took to be great, we'd see greatness every day on daytime talk shows and late-night infomercials.  I've got nothing against bleak, sad, and cruel when it's used for some purpose more ambitious than pointing at people and saying "Bad bad bad!"  As they're used here, the movie is, alas, nothing MORE that bleak, sad, and cruel.  (except slow, tiresome, and often annoying)

Yes, I understand that it's the POINT that it's ugly, and it's the POINT that it's depressing, and it's the POINT that there's no actual conflict and that their bickering is stupid stupid stupid and it's the POINT that everybody's a pinhead and for Christ's sake, Romero made that point in fifteen minutes.  Making something ugly is easy, and if you don't believe me, think on that during your next bowel movement. (NOT that I'm comparing Day Of The Dead to anybody's bowel movements, sheesh, settle down) (okay, there was that "sorry piece of crap" comment in my original review, which believe me, I regret saying) Making something compelling in its ugliness, that's worth looking at.  Making something depressing is easy - again, not enough; making it disturbing, now that's something to shoot for.  Day Of The Dead isn't disturbing, it's just depressing.  It isn't compelling, it's just ugly.  And watching it for the seventh time, I find myself hard-pressed to believe that Romero was even aspiring to those higher things; Day Of The Dead feels like a dejected, exhausted effort that wasn't so much made as it was gotten out of the way. I know this movie has its fans, and Romero himself may have a different story, but that's how it feels.

It's not that I don't get it; there's just not much to get.  A lot of people look at Day Of The Dead and see, as was said before, the best thing Romero's ever done, or the last serious horror film, or whatever.  That's okay. Different strokes, n' all; God knows there are enough movies I like which everybody else takes issue with.  But I'm not gonna soft-sell what I see when I watch this movie.  I see an emperor with no clothes. 

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