Zombies for Halloween: Day of the Dead

Zombies for Halloween brings us another helping of flesh devouring monsters as Romero strikes again with a cornucopia of undead so grab a melee weapon, some MREs, water and hope for the best. This is Day of the Dead.

When the wave gets violent.

In continuation from Dawn of the Dead, we follow another group of survivors consisting of scientists, military and civilians struggling through the days, losing hope in ever defeating the onslaught of the undead. Happy pills anyone? Our story revolves around Sarah, (Lori Cardille of Ryan’s Hope, The Equalizer, Tales from the Darkside, Dead and Alive: The Race for Gus Farace and No Pets) an anthropologist assigned by the remnants of the remaining government to solve the zombie epidemic. Along with an electrician McDermott (Jarlath Conroy of The Elephant Man, Joe, Law& Order and Kinsey) a horrendous Jamaican accented pilot John (Terry Alexander of Flashpoint, The Horror Show, Hurricane and Conspiracy Theory) combing southern Florida attempting to find any signs of human life. Sarah’s fellow scientists working around the clock with different fields of expertise work with substandard equipment in a desperate attempt to combat the ongoing plague. Dr. Logan dubbed Frankenstein (Richard Liberty of The Crazies, Love Child, Miami Vice, Flight of the Navigator and Vengeance: The Story of Tony Cimo) is experimenting with zombie’s lower brain functions in the anticipation the undead can be taught a few tricks. Roll over, fetch and not eat my leg I guess are the primary ones. 

Damn, my nose is itchy.  Hey, where is my nose??!!!

The commanding officer of the base sent them on recon to failure; as they return from the wasted trip they find he died in the middle of the night and is replaced by next in line of command Captain Rhodes (Joe Pilato of Effects, Knightriders, Spenser: For Hire, Gung Ho and Alienator) a man barely holding his unit together (no penis jokes please) and his own sanity when all he wants to do cut bait and get the Hell out of dodge. The biggest issue is going where? How many dead versus living are there? Is food and ammunition plentiful? What of civilization and heck is little Timmy stuck in the well?

The clock is ticking for our scientists and Rhode is less stable than nitroglycerin in a paint shaker, will there be salvation or damnation?

This is the part we like to call fun facts. Working diligently on the set of Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, the founding members of KNB EFX Gregory Nicotero, Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman (Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, Creepshow 2 Phantasm II, Monkey Shines, The Horror and Halloween 5)cut their teeth under George Romero’s third zombie movie, made victims as Greg had an animatronics head made after he is squibbed (rigged with a light ignition charge with fake blood packs), Howard get a head shot squib and twirls to the ground while Robert safely ducked out of acting in this film but got stuck handing out the contacts for zombie extras.

Pace of the story is drawn out but for image impact to establish the futility of the struggle and the lack of humanity as the hearts harden in order to carry on. Romero brings us hope and despair in this movie. So your gore nuts will be happy with the patented work of Tom Savini and the creation of what will be KNB EFX. For the zombie nuts well hey there be plenty o dead roaming about.

Beats doing a flick with Ross Hagen I guess.