Day of the Dead

George Romero's Day of the Dead movie explores, once again, the post apocalyptic world that would be created if zombies began to overtake the human life and all of its existence. We follow a small group and despite their few numbers, they have a divide that is separating them from accomplishing something. Research and science versus violence and destruction, the two are in constant opposition.

The remaining military personnel just want to get rid of every zombie in sight. Yes, it is a plan but given their resources it is also very impractical. The other people, mostly the research scientist, he just wants to "train" the zombies to behave in a more human manner. Again, we can all see how this too is quite the task in itself and nearly possible to achieve. In the middle are Sarah, John, Bill, and a few others are stuck trying to please both groups of people. As many of the zombie movies we have watched, the humans' biggest downfall is the lack of a similar goal. Most definitely, only a few will survive if anything.

In some of the books and literature we talked about how the zombies begin to evolve and becoming smarter as time progresses. In this movie, a different approach is taken. A few characters in the movie do say that the zombies are becoming more intelligent but the scientist has a different way of using their instinct behaviors. His goal was to domesticate the zombie, something we have seen or read about previously. We first see this occur when Bub, the zombie under experimentation, acts like he's shaving his face, reading a book, and even talking on the telephone.

Near the end of the movie is when we really see the effects of teaching the zombies. It is obvious that through time, Bub learned and developed feelings. When the scientist died, Bub became upset, saddened, and angered. He took his revenge out on Rhodes and ended up shooting him. This type of behavior we have not seen before because we were under the assumption that zombie had no way of possessing such thoughts. Prior to Day of the Dead, zombie have been completely mindless.

Briefly, there were some important symbolism to be pointed out. One that tied the story together was the calendar that Sarah crossed the days off on. The last scene of the movie shows her crossing off November 4th, which is Day of the Dead in Latin American cultures. Maybe is it just to show that the three survivors may be the only real humans left and every other "human" is a zombie, dead.