To approach Day of the Dead, you first have to realize that Dawn is gone. This is not a funny film. There is no elevator music or humorous physical comedy to grant you reprieve from this nightmare. It is a dark, almost suffocating production and it contains some of the most gruesome violence ever burnt into your brain, despite the 23 years of technological developments in brain-bashing good fun that have been made since. While less of an all-encompassing world catastrophe film, Day shows the alternative to blindly fighting the incoming masses — studying. Albeit with a conclusion that is hardly foregone.
It takes place in a (then) modern missile silo, where two teams of people have grouped together in an unstable symbiotic relationship. The scientists and the military have formed an uneasy bond between them, one weakened by the inheritence of control by Captain Rhodes, a terrifying quasi-fascist dictator played by Joe Pilato. The protagonist, Sarah (Lori Cardille), is torn between the two sides as she is the core of the scientists, but is also romantically involved with a mentally breaking down Miguel (Anthony Dileo Jr.).
As time and a lack of progress assist in the deterioration of the relationship between the two factions, Sarah becomes more and more desperate for a cure. She turns to the leader of the scientists, the brilliant but absent Dr. Logan, an archetypal mad doctor who's obsession with the study of the zombies has turned dangerous. The movie's centerpiece is Logan's pupil, Bub, a zombie who's slowly remembering his past life as he's taught through reward and punishment how to use his former tools (a Walkman, a razor, a pistol). It is through this studious cadaver that we are shown a mirror image of ourselves, juxtaposed with the rising tempers of the military. Tensions mount as more discoveries are made about the mad doctor, and Sarah struggles to save the camp's chances of making any progress in the development of an antidote.
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