THE END IS NIGH! Part 3: Day Of The Dead - 1985 After Dawn Of The Dead, zombies migrated to Italy, where a whole industry sprung up after the Lucio Fulci-directed Zombi 2 (an unofficial sequel to Romero's film, which had been released as Zombi in Italy) became a huge hit. In what is a wonderful example of the true meaning of exploitation filmmaking, other directors actually started copying Fulci instead of Romero hoping to repeat his success. While the italians spent (some would say wasted) a large part of the eighties making ever worse imitations of imitations of Dawn Of The Dead, covering no new ground and generally sticking rigidly to the concepts put forth in Romero's work, the man himself was getting ready to reinvigorate the genre with a leap forward. Taking the progression of title one step further, after the Night and the Dawn, Romero now presented Day Of the Dead. The title summed it up nicely: gone was the old chestnut of nighttime being the time for horrors. In the third part of the trilogy not even the days are safe anymore. Day Of The Dead certainly had a harder time proving itself than Dawn did. With Dawn everything simply seemed to fall into place, not only during the film's production (which hardly endured any setbacks and was described by Romero with the words "as easy as falling off a log"), but also in the timing of its release. Day however, encountered many a problem on its way from script to screen, many of which caused the final result to be the least satisfactory film in the trilogy. Problem number one was budget. The film's link with small independent producer/distributor UFD had some serious repercussions. Romero's original script, a sprawling, ambitious action epic had to be toned down considerably as UFD refused to put up the cash for it unless Romero could guarantee the film would get an 'R' rating on release. The R rating (which stands for 'restricted' and literally means "No one under 17 admitted unless escorted by an adult guardian") is financially the most interesting option for distributors. The higher 'X' rating is synonymous with outright pornography to most americans, while the milder 'PG' means the film is way too childish in the eyes of the adolescents that make up 80 percent of the filmgoing public. In order to get an R rating, films need to have 'acceptable' levels of violence and not too much gore. Considering the amount of both violence and gore inherent in a Romero zombie movie, an R rating was out of the question for Day. It was a matter of either selling out in the effects department, or simplifying the story so it could go out uncut, but would cost much less. Romero chose the latter and rewrote the script into a much more character-driven, but in the end very talky, story. Problem number two was the film's timing. It was released eight years after Dawn and in those eight years audiences had been witness to the splatter revolution. These were the days of Halloween, Friday The 13th and a zillion other stalk 'n slash quickies, all trying to outdo each other in the grisly murder department. Suddenly a zombie getting its head blown off didn't seem very frightening anymore. Audiences had simply grown more immune to gore effects. Problem number three was competition. At the same time as Day's release, there appeared another zombie movie, called Return Of The Living Dead and the two films went head to head at the box office. The fact that the general public understandably got the two films mixed up didn't help matters, but Day, with its limited distribution and advertising (once again due to UFD's sparse resources), didn't stand a chance against the advertising onslaught put up by the major studio that financed Return Of The Living Dead. It completely sinked Romero's film. What was more ironic, though, was the fact that Return actually originated as a direct relative to Night Of The Living Dead. It was written four years after Night by three of the film's producers as a possible sequel. Through a series of deals, the script and rights went from hand to hand, enduring constant story changes, until it landed in the lap of Orion Pictures, who released in the fall of '85, directly opposite Day. But you can only blame the competition for so much. A film has to work in its own right, and Day, to be honest, was far from brilliant. It's enjoyable enough, with good acting, great gore effects by Tom Savini (surpassing Dawn, as a matter of fact) and many great story ideas. It once again works as an extrapolation of the themes of the previous film, as mankind has finally lost the battle and is now discovering there might be different methods to win back lost ground. Scientists (becoming the modern day equivalent of the heretofore absent voodoo master) discover zombies have rudimentary intelligence and even show the ability of being domesticated (but of course they have to be fed before they start learning anything). What marred Day was the amount of time it spent on boring conversation and pseudo-philosophy. For every great action sequence there are two boring talky ones. Especially when put against the playfulness and pace of Return Of The Living Dead (which it does on closer inspection beat quite convincingly), overall Day seems way too boring for its own good. Still, all is not lost. Day has many things going for it, not the least of which is Romero's commendable consistency. In Day, the main protagonist is once again female. The character of Sarah, played by Lori Cardille, is a reflection of women in the eighties. After Judith O'Dea's hour-long state of shock and catatonia as Barbara in Night (the sixties), the character of Fran in Dawn, played by Gaylen Ross, showed the progression of women in western society during the seventies. Fran is stronger and shows more initiative, but is still misunderstood by the men, who have a habit of treating her as a fragile creature. In Day however, Sarah is independent to the point of towering over her whining boyfriend Miguel. She even winds up chopping off his arm when Miguel gets bitten by a zombie. So much for fragile creatures. Similarly, Romero onc again uses a black protagonists in this film. Night's Ben (Duane Jones), Dawn's Peter (Ken Foree) and Day's John (Terry Alexander) all serve as a steadfast voice of reason. Unlike the women's roles, the role of the black male does not seem to change through the decades. What does change is the size of the role. In Night, Ben was the main character. In Dawn, Peter was one of four equals. But in Day, John is most definitely a supporting character. It's unclear what this says, if it says anything at all. Perhaps Romero felt that in the eighties it was less necessary to put emphasis on a prominent black character, as opposed to the sixties, when american society was confronted in a rather painful way with the way it treated blacks. Another reason might be that after two films, using a prominent black character was becoming a gimmick. Perhaps there is no reason and it just happened through circumstance, rather in the way Duane Jones ended up being cast as Ben in Night. Overall Day Of The Dead is not the movie it should have been. Due to circumstances Romero didn't get to tell the story he wanted to tell, leaving the zombie trilogy dangling and many things unresolved. Click here for part 4: The remains