Day of the Dead: The Last Crusade

Day of the Dead = 3 and 1/2 out of 5 Stars

Miguel: HELLO!?!?!...Is ANYONE THERE...Hello?!

The least of Romero's original 'of the dead' movie trilogy, still effective enough. It is the goriest of the three and that's not bad.  The problem is mainly due to the poor characters in this film, as opposed to the more effective work done in the previous features.  Still, it's very well made for what it is and has the right kind of cult appeal to please zombie fans everywhere.

Dr. Logan: We don't have enough ammunition to shoot them all in the head. The time to have done that would have been in the beginning. No, we let them overrun us. We are in the minority now, something like 400,000 to one by my calculation.

Now taking place in the 80s, Romero's fun with chronology has this time led to the world mostly being ravaged by zombies, with few survivors existing.  Our main characters now live in an underground bunker in Florida, going above ground rarely to find more signs of life, but also experimenting on the undead below.  While our protagonists are of course on the kinder side, those also living underground are basically asshole military characters.  Trouble arises as tensions reach a boiling point, which will most likely lead to a zombie uprising down below.

Pvt. Steel: Lay off the fuckin' booze for a while why don't ya? And get somebody on that fuckin' horn, pronto!
McDermott: Well if we stay down here long enough
[McDermott reaches for his flask and poors a shot]
McDermott: I'll have to lay off the fuckin' booze Steel 'cause there won't fuckin' be any of it fuckin' left! In the meanwhile I will continue to indulge myself and I will continue doing my best in the good fight against dryrot and rust.

Of the original trilogy, this is Romero's best made film, despite not being the best one story and character-wise.  The makeup by Tom Savini is freakin' fantastic, and anyone who didn't enjoy the purposeful but cartoonish looking effects of the previous entry should surely be happy with the zombies here.  It ditches the comedic satirical tone of 'Dawn' for a more serious approach to the situations at hand, and even though some of the characters are completely over the top, there are good scenes revolving around thoughts on dealing with what is basically the end of the world.

While watching this once again, I also realized how much I was engaged in the movie. This basically goes for all the Romero zombie flicks, and most zombie flicks for me in general. The more I watch it, the more I enjoy seeing these various characters. These movies definitely work as the kind of films that are fun to see on repeated viewings.

If you want to see a lot of experiments on zombies and sitcom style military leaders, then here it is. The music is very good, very horror 80s. Stupid characters are made up for with characters you want to see live and great death scenes.  It's a downgrade for the trilogy, but still a fun watch.


Oh, and Bub is awesome.

Rhodes: Choke on them!