Note: In the following review and in subsequent comments or emails I will not acknowledge existence of any and all Day of the Dead spin-offs or follow-ups not involving the director of the original.
Talk to any self respecting zombie film fanatic — and boy, are there a ton of them — and you'll generally hear one of two things. The first: “ROMERO WAS GOD.” The second: “ROMERO IS GOD.” To your average sane human being neither of these sentences makes sense by itself, but to this esoteric clique, these sentences aren't just specific, they define exactly where along the zombie spectrum you sit.
Most of the diehards live by the former, believing that the beloved director George A. Romero, creator of the Living Dead (or just plain Dead) series, has produced his best work, and will never reach the heights he reached in the sixties and seventies. The latter, mostly latecomers to the zombie phenomenon, are people who are ready to believe that Romero has, or is just about to, come out with another masterpiece.
While both of these arguments can be debated, there is one Romero film that has been abandoned by both the diehards and the latecomers, 1985's Day of the Dead. I'm writing this as a Romero devotee, one of the people who do believe that Land of the Dead was worth creating, and that Diary of the Dead is a step in the right direction. Hell, I think Diary of the Dead is a movie and a half, to be honest. But this column is dedicated to the sole purpose of defending the original Day of the Dead, in hopes of elevating it to a higher state of critical respect, which I sincerely doubt will ever arrive.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments