In 2008, one of the films released is said to be one of the most thrilling and frightening movie ever. Day of the Dead, the third and concluding chapter in George Romero’s zombie trilogy is the most distinctly 1950s-style science fiction version of the lot. Set in Florida, as the film begins the dead have taken over the world, outnumbering humans 400,000 to one. The handful of surviving humans have taken refuge in an underground missile silo and argue and yell at each other like players in a Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode.
Romero’s script, which concerns the last stand against zombie nation by a group of scientists and soldiers holed up in an underground military base, aims for claustrophobic creepiness. Yet a good portion of the film is dulled by endless arguments between the lab rats (who, led by Richard Liberty’s Dr. “Frankenstein” Logan, are experimenting on captured zombies) and the grunts (who want to shoot their way to freedom). Romero has never been much of a visual stylist, but Tom Savini knows his way around gory effects, and the zombies moan — and maim — disgustingly well. Yet even if Day of the Dead doesn’t significantly raise one’s heartbeat, the film’s frosty pessimism about mankind’s future does eventually get under your skin. Dr. Logan’s humane efforts to train Bub (Sherman Howard), a gentle zombie, speaks to humanity’s more noble aspirations, especially considering that — unlike its predecessors, which portrayed the creatures as distinctly inhuman — the film makes clear that the zombies are fundamentally human.
Among the survivors are Sarah (Lori Cardille) — a scientist who is trying to reverse the process whereby the dead turn into flesh-eating, irrational zombies — and Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty) — an out-of-his-mind psychologist who wants to capture the zombies and turn them into domestic help. Things heat up when the military tries to take over the scientific experiments.