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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Zombie > Day Of The Dead (1985/Anchor Bay Divimax DVD set)

Day Of The Dead (1985/Anchor Bay DiviMax Edition DVD Set)

 

Picture: B+     Sound: B     Extras: A-     Film: B+

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: Since we reviewed this DVD set upon its original release, two Blu-ray editions have surfaced, which you can read more about at these links:

 

Australian Umbrella Blu-ray

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10388/Night+Of+The+Living+Dead+(1968)

 

U.S. Anchor Bay Blu-ray

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6152/Day+Of+The+Dead+(1985/Blu-ray)

 

 

Now, the original review…

 

 

All films depict a particular period in time, whether it is past, present or future.  No matter what period the film is in, it always reflects the period from which it is released.  This is something that is still grossly overlooked when people rewatch older films.  George A. Romero’s zombie films reflect the time in which they were made as well, with the original Night of the Living Dead being a reflection of the 1960s, original Dawn of the Dead (yes, they have remade that one too) on the 1970s, and the last film Day of the Dead (1985) stuck in the middle of the Reagan administration.  The more observant have already noticed.

 

How many horror films actually take place during the day?  Not many.  There is something about the nighttime that is always more eerie in the horror genre.  Darkness is the mystery, but going against this is daylight where things ‘seem’ safe, yet when they are not, they become even more frightening.  We have become accustomed to movies that show dark scenes and then we expect something scary, but when we have a lit room, or a bright sunny day we are not expecting anything bad to happen.  That tends to be par for the course in the look (semantics) of these films.

 

What is particularly odd about this third (another trilogy by Romero surfaced since we first posted this review!) installment to the series is the fact that some fans love it, while others do not.  Some feel it is equally as powerful to the previous two, while some might debate that it lacks all the muster of its predecessors.  One fair argument might be to say that this film works altogether differently.  At this point the humans have a full understanding of the zombie species.  We have become smarter – the few that have survived that is.  Now humans have become the minority and there is something interesting that Romero is working with here.  In fact even a more recent attempt at this was Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2003. see Blu-ray review elsewhere on this site) which treaded much of the same territory as this film.  Normal human beings now are subject to being hunted or sought after by a larger populous. 

 

Anchor Bay has revisited Day of the Dead an upgraded the film in just about every aspect imaginable.  This new edition features a better transfer, which is framed at an anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 and looks decent, but still gives a dated look to the film.  Although whites and blacks are improved here and other colors seem rendered much better.  Detail and depth is lacking in certain areas with an overall softness throughout, but still not bad.  Anchor Bay’s first release of this film only featured a mono soundtrack, which has since been replaced by this new discs stunning DTS-ES Discrete audio track.  Stunning is to say that it is far superior to that previous disc, but still lacks some of the punch of more modern films that have bigger budgets and better technology.  This film never offered a state-of-the-art sound design to begin with, but this new multi-channel mix gives a nice approximation as to what capabilities it does have. 

 

What I like about the DTS-ES mix is the fact that it smoothes out the film with a comfortable sound mix that never seems harsh.  There is a foreboding sense that is created with certain sound effects and music cues that have never been there before, or at least not to the same degree.  The ES channel is reserved mostly for leftover music coming from the surrounds or some directional effects like gunshots, which ricochet in and out of the surrounds. 

 

The film also has a Dolby Digital 5.1 EX encoded mix as well for those without DTS decoders, but it cuts out much of the fidelity that the DTS mix offers.  Not only that, but it also makes the mix much flatter and far more shallow.  The other two audio options are both commentaries from special effects artist Tom Savini, George A. Romero, and Roger Avery.  They are not all on the same track, but what makes their commentary special is the fact that the talk about just about every aspect of the film.  From production to the various versions of the film, they hardly leave out much.

 

What they are not able to cover is made up in the behind-the-scenes portion or the new documentary made just for this issue.  There are some various other little supplements that have been thrown together to give this film all its weight, which is sure to make any fan drool. 

 

However, there is more here than a zombie film strictly for fans of this type of more graphic filmmaking and its many supplements.  Romero’s nightmares have vital points to make.  It is also a film that marked the end of a run of bold filmmaking that was more possible before the era of cineplexes kicked in.  After the NC-17 succeeded the X rating (sometime after Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop in 1987), a brief attempt for a mature cinema came and went.  It was doomed by the mainstream studios.  That makes films from a filmmaker like Romero all the more vital.

 

Romero could have more money, but choose severe creative control instead, which is how this was issued in an uncompromised cut to begin with.  Though the film looks stressed in some ways as a result of less money available, the content of the screenplay and the action on screen (in true Rock N Roll spirit) triumph.  Like the underrated third parts of other film series (George Miller’s Mad Max – Beyond Thunderdome (1985), David Fincher’s Alien 3 (1992, especially the longer cut), and Jonathan Mostow’s Terminator 3 – Rise of the Machines (2003) for example), Day of the Dead takes its story forward more than anyone had a right to expect.

 

Romero has been trying to do a fourth installment, but nothing has caught on, despite the ever-increasing significance of this trilogy.  He scored another artistic triumph a few years later, despite clashes with the now-defunct Orion Pictures, on Monkey Shines – An Experiment in Fear (1988, soundtrack reviewed elsewhere eon this site) and almost helmed the Resident Evil films [four now and counting].  Whatever his next move, this recent viewing of Day of the Dead convinces than ever its points and more than enough has happened in our world since to make another sequel very viable.  You can read about the follow-up trilogy films (Land Of The Dead, Diary Of The Dead, Survival Of The Dead) elsewhere on this site and check out the originals on Blu-ray starting with the links above.

 

 

-   Nate Goss & Nicholas Sheffo


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