Rating: 3.5/5
Hooptober 4.0 | 28/31 | Romero Dead
Dr. Sarah Bowman sits, head bowed, in a white brick room. Across from her, a calendar with days demarcated by red X’s. She approaches the calendar, reminiscing over the October image of people in a pumpkin field. Suddenly, dozens of rotting hands break through the brick wall like paper, reaching toward Dr. Bowman.
She awakens in a helicopter flying over Fort Myers. Private Miguel Salazar prays, kissing a cross around his neck. Bill McDermott continues to try people on the radio but can’t get anyone. Dr. Bowman suggests settling down, to which Bill scoffs. But Dr. Bowman is determined to take every chance possible to find survivors. John, the pilot, agrees to land but will take off at the first sign of trouble.
Dr. Bowman and Private Salazar walk the desolated streets. Salazar uses the bullhorn, calling for anyone alive — a vocal sample I recognize from the Gorillaz song M1 A1. Bill continues to broadcast out, but John tells him not to bother. The undead hears the bullhorn and rouse from the static state — missing jaws, eyes, and noses. Soon, a hoard of hundreds convenes in the street. The crew hopelessly boards the helicopter and returns to their base — an underground missing bunker in the Everglades.
Underground, Dr. Logan keeps a collection of undead as test subjects in an underground corral in the compound. He believes he can domesticate them through training. He may be right, as soldiers call out for the undead, and the undead hesitate — they’re learning. Still, Dr. Bowman believes they should look to cure the virus.
Miguel’s loosening grip on reality nearly causes an undead to kill one of their soldiers. The other soldiers threaten to throw him to the undead for his recklessness. When Dr. Bowman saves him, he slaps her repeatedly for making him look weak.
If all this wasn’t enough, Major Cooper died that morning, putting Captain Rhodes in charge. Captain Rhodes opposes the collection of undead, especially as research shows little progress. Rhodes intends to execute anyone who stands in his way.
In this grim power play, the film looks for glimpses of humanity and a unifying cause.
George A. Romero’s Dead series launched the zombie craze without ever referring to them as zombies. Here, Romero critiques Reagan’s military-industrial complex and the cultural apathy that dominated postmodern discourse.
This film came out in the shadow of two films that owe much to the previous Dead films: Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead. Compared to those high-octane romps, this film takes a slower, talkier approach.
It also isn’t the film that Romero set out to make. He cut a 204-page script down to 122 and still could not receive the funding necessary to make it — Romero’s recurring foil throughout his career. The story would sound familiar to Fallout fans — a society attempts to rebuild while the military funds projects to weaponize the undead in service of humanity. But, you know, hubris.
Romero’s producers offered him a choice: receive the $7 million and make an R-rated film, or receive half that to produce an X/unrated film. He chose the latter for artistic integrity, but the budget limits only hindered his ability to tell the story he wanted. We still get Tom Savini’s spectacular gore effects — his assistant, Greg Nicotero, would serve as the principal effects person on The Walking Dead.
Still, the filmmakers could not realize the scale. With the slashed budget, Romero rewrote the film from scratch, producing the 88-page script we see in this movie. And, as the producers guessed, Savini’s effects on the brutal kills led to an X rating.
The resulting film is a dark reflection of Romero’s most pessimistic tendencies. The oasis that John and Bill have feels nice but also disconnected from reality. John believed the plague was a curse from god and that none of our knowledge matters — they have opted out and chosen self-preservation.
It’s wild how many brilliant actors are here, giving the broadest, loudest performances. With a character-heavy script on a sci-fi concept, the film has trouble getting to the action. But once it gets going, it’s fucking gnarly.
I love the score! It has a satisfying blend of emotional and haunting moments.
Bub is the most inspiring aspect of the movie — rediscovering the humanity of who the military reduced to “the enemy.” The rest of the movie undermines this for the sake of kills, but the kills are the best part of the movie.
Overall, this is a significantly weaker film than the predecessors, helped by moments of humanity and disgusting gore.