The third in the series of the "Living Dead" films, Day Of The Dead generally seems to be considered the weakest. I'm afraid that i do agree with this
assertion, although i do not think it is particularly bad, it's just not as good as either Night Of The Living Dead or Dawn Of The Dead.
The story of this film focuses on yet another group of people caught in the middle of the plague of zombies. The group is primarily a military one, although there are a few civilians (a helicopter pilot, communications engineer and a couple of doctors). They are holed up in an udnerground military bunker somewhere near the East coast, and the beginning conveys a sense of their desperation almost straight away. We see one of the doctors, the pilot, the engineer and a military bloke land in a deserted-looking town or city. They use a megaphone to try and get the attention of any survivors, but it isn't long before the zombie hordes shamble from every doorway and hole in the ground, with no sign of any living people. Back at the base, we learn that they are losing men to these pointless excursions, and worse still there
hasn't been much in the way of progress made by the two doctors, who are examining the zombies (they have a stash of them penned up inside the base) to try and find the
cause of the zombiness. As the film progresses we see the adverse affects of "cabin fever" taking their toll on the base's new commander, the rest of the military staff,
even the two doctors. Things come to a head slowly but surely, and there are some surprises along the way. there are also some pretty disturbing (and sometimes disturbing
yet funny) scenes, such as the zombie listening to music, or the zombie with it's stomach open that sits up from a table only to have its guts fall out. This is also a
pretty gory film, even before the real action starts - the eccentric male doctor is literally butchering the zombies in the name of science. Probably the most famous scene
involves one of the army men being slowly torn apart by zombies, he continues screaming even as his head is pulled from his body, the scream turning to a sort of high-pitched gurgling once his throat is shredded by the grasping hands of the zombie horde - this film is NOT for the faint-hearted.
All in all, it makes a bit of a change from the "group of random people holed up and picking off zombies" plots of the first two films, and there is more character development than either of the other two films (well technically three, i count Night Of The Living Dead and its remake as the same film, because it doesn't make too much difference to
the overall plot of the films)
If you're not a horror or zombie film fan, you probably won't enjoy it much though.