Dawn of the Dead (1978) - OUT OF PRINT

[Dragon Ranger]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

And mine!

Dawn is a minor classic but Day is just better. It never fails to make me laugh and is just 80s to a tee. Anyone who doesnt laugh at the soldiers' expletive-laden banter just doesnt have a sense of humour for me. And the Lieutenant is priceless. And Dr Frankenstein. And Bub. I could go on!

And it has Ripley/Sarah Connor too!

Day was the first Romero movie I saw and it blew me away with the gore, the bleak setting and the incredibly quotable swearing! Dawn is probably my favourite but Day is very close to it.

[Dragon Ranger]

I thought Land of the Dead was great fun, not a classic like the original three but a cut above a lot of other modern zombie movies. A great cast of characters too.

Diary of the Dead I consider a superior found footage movie which also has good moments.

Unfortunately Survival of the Dead was one of the worst movies I have ever seen, I hope that doesn't prove to be Romero's zombie swansong and he has another great movie in him still.

[Geoff D]

Dawn is still the daddy but Day runs it damned close, it's a fantastic film. Everything else is on a lower tier, even the original Night which is really starting to show its age, I don't mean the effects but the storytelling. I thought Savini's remake was far better. Land is passable, Diary is indeed a half-decent 'found footage' movie and Survival's just plain strange, and not in a good way.

[ditcin]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

And mine!

Dawn is a minor classic but Day is just better. It never fails to make me laugh and is just 80s to a tee. Anyone who doesnt laugh at the soldiers' expletive-laden banter just doesnt have a sense of humour for me. And the Lieutenant is priceless. And Dr Frankenstein. And Bub. I could go on!

And it has Ripley/Sarah Connor too!

I remember seeing DAWN in the theater during a matinee (just prior to it being forced into the midnight run due to the rating) and the audience just being shocked into silence.
DAY was a real disappointment in the theater. The audience just groaned quickly board from the constant "expletive-laden banter". It was just too much. One person just yelled out, "Enough with the "F**ks already!"
Everyone clapped in agreement.
It was still a time when moviegoers expected real writing, even in exploitation films.
While walking out the consensus was no one like the characters by the end clapped as each one got knocked off. The audience just didn't care by that point and general opinion was DAWN was just better.
Yet, the only agreed point everyone had was Romero was great creating an atmosphere of dread.

[oldgame]

Reading through this forum it seems like everyone can't decide which is the best cut of DOTD. Hopefully soon we can get a proper blu release with every cut. I've only seen the American cut.

[ravenus]

^I like Day of The Dead a lot. It has a deliberately bleak worldview, with the zombie epidemic at its zenith, and the claustrophobic pressure cooker atmosphere of the shelter is very well realized. You can expect that nobody is on their best behavior here. That said, Lori Cardille's character I definitely empathized with, Richard Liberty was crazy fun (or fun crazy) and Sherman Howard as Bub was a lovely tribute to Frankenstein's monster.

Reading through this forum it seems like everyone can't decide which is the best cut of DOTD. Hopefully soon we can get a proper blu release with every cut. I've only seen the American cut.

The theatrical cut is the closest to an actual finished Director's Cut. The extended version was a hasty pre-release job they did to show the film at Cannes, and Argento's cut is for me at least more of a novelty item, with more gore scenes and Goblin music thrown in - in any case neither of the alternate cuts are George Romero's final vision of the film, so not much debate there.

[Dragon Ranger]

Originally Posted by ravenus

^I like Day of The Dead a lot. It has a deliberately bleak worldview, with the zombie epidemic at its zenith, and the claustrophobic pressure cooker atmosphere of the shelter is very well realized. You can expect that nobody is on their best behavior here. That said, Lori Cardille's character I definitely empathized with, Richard Liberty was crazy fun (or fun crazy) and Sherman Howard as Bub was a lovely tribute to Frankenstein's monster.


The theatrical cut is the closest to an actual finished Director's Cut. The extended version was a hasty pre-release job they did to show the film at Cannes, and Argento's cut is for me at least more of a novelty item, with more gore scenes and Goblin music thrown in - in any case neither of the alternate cuts are George Romero's final vision of the film, so not much debate there.

Absolutely agree with your points about Day.

And also agree, the theatrical cut of Dawn is the tightest and Romero's preferred one so its the version I watch the most and also the one I would use to introduce the movie to someone who hasn't seen it before (yes unfortunately such people do exist).

[JimDiGriz]

Originally Posted by ditcin

I remember seeing DAWN in the theater during a matinee (just prior to it being forced into the midnight run due to the rating) and the audience just being shocked into silence.
DAY was a real disappointment in the theater. The audience just groaned quickly board from the constant "expletive-laden banter". It was just too much. One person just yelled out, "Enough with the "F**ks already!"
Everyone clapped in agreement.
It was still a time when moviegoers expected real writing, even in exploitation films.
While walking out the consensus was no one like the characters by the end clapped as each one got knocked off. The audience just didn't care by that point and general opinion was DAWN was just better.
Yet, the only agreed point everyone had was Romero was great creating an atmosphere of dread.

Day is way more quotable than Dawn.

"Is there food?"

"I'm running this monkey farm now Frankenstein! And I want to know...what the f**k you are doing with MY TIME!"

Day is more rewatchable as well. And it has better characters. And better effects. I still love Dawn though!

[PowellPressburger]

Originally Posted by ditcin

DAY was a real disappointment in the theater. The audience just groaned quickly board from the constant "expletive-laden banter". It was just too much. One person just yelled out, "Enough with the "F**ks already!"
Everyone clapped in agreement.

I agree, over the years I've tried to like the movie but 95% of the characters annoy me and I don't mind the cursing in movies, but it was as if this was written by a 12 year old boy who was just told he could say those words! Makeup effects etc may be good but it is NO Dawn of the Dead. Day seemed promising with the opening but it failed. Dawn is a masterpiece by comparison. To this day I still don't own Day at all. I've purchased it several times trying to revisit but have always sold off my copies because I never wanted to see it again

[TylerDurden389]

There is a lot of cursing, but let's be honest, it's a group of commandos who are "tough guys" that have experienced training to harden their skills further, that are living underground for an undisclosed amount of time, there's possibly millions of zombies above the surface just waiting to tear them to pieces, and as far as hey know they're the last people alive on Earth and have nothing to do but wait to die.

What kind of language did audiences expect them to use?

[PowellPressburger]

the language was over the top crazy. I know people in the military that don't even talk like that! But the characters that are over the top in DAY are just written that way, immature and power in the wrong hands.

[StingingVelvet]

I've never ever cared about cursing in movies. I mean, I love Tarantino, so... yeah. And Day is definitely extremely well written and is making a lot of smart comments on society. It's a shame some classify it as poorly written or dumb because of all the language (which definitely DOES sound like the military people I know, and I know a lot of them as my mother was an MP for 16 years).

[JimDiGriz]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

I agree, over the years I've tried to like the movie but 95% of the characters annoy me and I don't mind the cursing in movies, but it was as if this was written by a 12 year old boy who was just told he could say those words! Makeup effects etc may be good but it is NO Dawn of the Dead. Day seemed promising with the opening but it failed. Dawn is a masterpiece by comparison. To this day I still don't own Day at all. I've purchased it several times trying to revisit but have always sold off my copies because I never wanted to see it again

Its supposed to be funny though! Well thats the way I see it. I guess it depends on your sense of humour (well, black humour anyway).

I am literally howling when I watch Day despite seeing it many times and knowing exactly what happens - I can probably quote most of it!

[DaveyJoe]

"Choke on 'em! Choke on 'emmmmm!"

[Show spoiler]

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

Its supposed to be funny though! Well thats the way I see it. I guess it depends on your sense of humour (well, black humour anyway).

Indeed.

They're supposed to be alpha male jerk caricatures and then as things go bad you find out just how dangerous those alpha male jerks can be at the end of the world. It's great social commentary, as is pretty much everything else in the movie.

[Richard Graham]

I was pretty innocent in my teens. The first time I saw the Choke on 'em scene I nearly fanted. I didn't know movies contained scenes like that. Now I'm like Ha! Rip! LOL!

[Dragon Ranger]

The swearing all seems natural to the characters especially with the pressure cooker atmosphere they are all living in. Plus its quotable as hell

[Markgway]

Not talking about DAY --- but the problem with some movies is that writers don't know how to use swearing and apply it so liberally and indiscriminately that it loses any impact or humorous intent.

[Wilkix]

Originally Posted by LuckyDragon

I turned off Day halfway through and never finished it. Good effects, but I couldn't stand the unlikable characters who shout every line. Land and Diary are decent enough but not essential. Never bothered with Survival.

For me it's pretty much Night and Dawn, and then everything else.

You'd be surprised Day might grow on you. I remember feeling the same way the first time I watched it all the way through, upon multiple viewings though you start to notice the characterization is reflected by the crumbling setting. Definitely not for everyone though, took a long time for Day to eventually become my favorite of the films.

[TylerDurden389]

Originally Posted by Wilkix

You'd be surprised Day might grow on you. I remember feeling the same way the first time I watched it all the way through, upon multiple viewings though you start to notice the characterization is reflected by the crumbling setting. Definitely not for everyone though, took a long time for Day to eventually become my favorite of the films.

::raises hand::

First saw this at 14-15 years old and found myself getting angry during the scenes where they're all yelling over each other and was tempted to turn it off. A few years later I found myself just enjoying it more thanks to seeing (and loving) "Dawn". I had gotten more into zombies and had seen some more zombie movies by this point and re-watching "Day" I noticed it's a lot better than I thought, by comparison. Now, as a 31 year old man who's intent to live his life like it's still the 80's, this is one of my favorite zombie movies ever.