The Film

Culturally, the 1980's are seen as a bit of a wasteland of big hair, empty pomposity and rank selfishness. Musically, they were all style and no content, and eighties cinema is similarly littered with the facile and the offensively dumb. In his own words, George A Romero attempted to capture some of the spirit of this decade in his Day of the Dead much as he had nodded to civil rights issues in the sixties and anti-capitalism in the seventies in his two previous Dead films. Because of the standing of his two previous films, the cuts to this project's budget, and a desire for something much more overtly political, Day of the Dead was quite poorly received on release. It is, I feel, the least satirical of his Dead films and the least analogous of any of his narratives. Yet it is great fun, quite gripping, and occasionally laugh out loud funny. Like the spirit of the decade it was made in, Day of the Dead chose to give the audience what it wanted uncomplicated by deeper social questions.

The action begins, as Dawn ended, with a helicopter looking for signs of civilisation free from the zombie hordes. Sarah, a research scientist, her soldier partner, and the pilot and radio operator are unsuccessful in their mission as they have been many times before. They return to their underground silo, complete with stir crazy military escorts and the diabolical experiments of Dr Logan. Experimenting on the living dead in order to find a key to reverse the infection or to civilise the threat, the scientists are pushing moral boundaries whilst their protectors are becoming more hostile. A confrontation is coming.Cut at a relatively brief 101 minutes, Romero's film is narratively strong and relatively up-tempo. The more playful elements of his previous Dead entry are built upon with even more outrageous dispatching of zombies and levels of gore to outstrip what has gone before. The scenes of experiments are pretty revolting, and the vivid horror of Sarah's nightmares are supremely evoked.

On a simple gorehound level, Romero more than delivers but the smaller budget and limited story, along with some recent flops, seem to encourage him to be less auteuristic in his treatment. What he settles for is a great ride that has far weaker thematic resonance.

Given the slew of movies that followed his previous instalment, it's unsurprising that Romero found himself playing to the crowd a bit. Whilst Dawn of the Dead is a great film with lots to say about the world we live in, what followed it was gore filled entertainment - gore and action. I feel that those who claim a strong sense of social critique for Day of the Dead are rather over-reaching themselves. There is some mild moral comment on those lost in violence or science, but basically the heroes of this work are enlightened lovers and dopeheads(the kinds of people who might be watching it after all). Still, Day of the Dead is perfectly fine and better than nearly all the italian knock-offs that Romero inspired.

Technical Specs

Our review copy of this blu-ray was region free and single layered with the transfer taking up 16.3GB of the 22.6GB used. The image is presented at 1.78:1 and the transfer has a frame-rate of 23.98 per second. Having never seen this film with a sharp appearance I am not entirely sure if it should look razor sharp but this is still a transfer lacking detail. I know the US blu-ray was criticised for DNR and I did notice some waxiness in the faces presented here as well. Colours are strong though, and the contrast seems appropriate too, although detail in shadow is again not impressive. There are moments where I noticed some edging, especially when we first meet Bob in the lab. Overall this is an improvement on standard definition but perhaps not as big an improvement as you might hope.The audio tracks include the original uncensored mono and a master audio mix in 5.1. This should please most viewers with the surround mix offering plenty of atmosphere and coverage for effects like gunfire and the groaning of the zombies in the caves. The music is mixed with consideration for the dialogue and even if the 5.1 mix can't be claimed as authentically three dimensional it's a decent compromise. Sadly no consideration is given to deaf viewers with no inclusion of subtitles.

Special Features

This is a two disc set with the main feature and two entirely new special features included on the blu-ray along with the commentary from the special effects team of Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger, Everett Burrell and Mike Deak. The commentary is a wet dream if you want to listen to nerdy guys talking about trivia to do with indie music and reshoots. Personally, this wasn't that exciting from my perspective.

New to this release is Joe of the dead. This is Joe Pilato, Captain Rhodes in the film, talking about his earlier career and his performance. Pilato is a bit of a luvvie but very chatty and politically switched on, and thankfully debunks some of the anti-vivisection readings of the film. Although he clearly has not heard of Joe D'Amato as he suggests zombie porn as a future development of the genre.



Travelogue of the dead follows Pilato around these isles as he does his PR tour, doing Q+A's, signings and the like. This is inter-cut with various fans of the film talking about their fave bits with a range of articulacy and standards of personal hygiene.

On to disc two which is a single layer region free DVD. The Many Days of the Dead features Romero discussing the fans of the film, "trolls", and stating how he was looking to make a Dead film every 10 years. Romero states he was trying to capture an eighties vibe of anti government and wanted to make a bigger scale film initially. Cast members talking about how they ended up in the film, and Romero speaks about believing in being free with his cast and crew.

The Zombie casting and location featurette follows with the pittance of pay emphasised and Joe Pilato contributing in his make-up room. An audio interview with Richard Liberty is up next who talks about being on the set and Romero's laid-back attitude. There is a reel of four TV adverts in TV Ads of the Dead, and trailers for the 30th Anniversary release of NOTLD and Dawn of the Dead too.

A single page essay on Romero with seven pages of credits is included as a Zombography, and photo galleries of poster art and zombie stills are here as well. The final extra on the second disc is the Wampum Mine promo which showcases the location of the film's shooting as a possible site for businesses to develop. The incongruity of factories replacing the living dead is rather whimsical and to be savoured.

Not included with our review copy was the 24 page comic which comes with this release or the four sleeve art options. We did though receive Calum Waddell's collector's booklet which is 16 pages long and features contributions from Lori Cardille and other cast and crew. Waddell places Day of the Dead in the context of recent flops in Romero's career, the decision to cut back on the budget and claims a lot for an anti-vivisectionist reading of the film. I wouldn't agree with that reading but Waddell's piece is interesting, well written and a worthy contribution to this fine package.

Summary

Simply in terms of numbers of extras, and particularly the new featurettes contained on the blu-ray, this is an impressive package. The transfer is not really all that improved from the existing Anchor Bay disc, although the sound options most definitely are. The extras though make this a fine purchase for Romero fans.

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