Day of the Dead – Tripping Through Gateways

La Muerta rules over the joyful Land of the Remembered, while Xibalba rules over the Land of the Forgotten. He tries to convince La Muerta to change sides, but she is not interested. He proposes a wager. Observing the rivalry of two young boys (Manolo and Joaquin) over their friend Maria, each god chooses a boy as the one who will marry Maria.

La Muerta disguises herself as an old woman who asks if Manolo might give her a piece of bread. Instead he generously offers a full loaf. Xibalba tries the same thing, but Joaquin is not so giving. Maria is sent off by her father, returning years later. Sensing Maria is favoring Manolo, Xibalba tricks Manolo into giving up his life.

In the afterlife, Manolo discovers he has been duped and seeks the help of La Muerta.

The design of this film is remarkably charming. The framing device is that a museum tour guide is telling the story, and all the characters look like wooden puppets.

The Land of the Dead is a wonderfully bright and colorful world. The characters are full of charm. La Muerta is a kind and gentle, yet fearless goddess. Xibalba on the other hand is both scheming and yet friendly (he is voiced by Ron Perlman, whose performance is just a lot of fun). And while the story frames Manolo as a kind and generous artist and Joaquin as a cheerful braggart? Joaquin is not a villain. The story is pitting the two against each other, and it obviously favors Manolo as the man for Maria. But Joaquin is seen as simply misguided and in need of a lesson. The film has sympathy for him. And then there is Maria. She is not interested in belonging to anyone and regularly challenges her two friends. And there is Chuy the pig who makes a sound like a goat.

The music of the Book of Life blends American Pop music with latin flavors to great effect. But the highlight are the two original tunes I Love You To Much and the Apology Song.

The Book of Life is a charming fairy tale of love, loss and rebirth.

It took 20 years for Romero to decide on a new zombie film. In this film? Set well after the zombie apocalypse, we are introduced to a small city that has grown, fortified against the dead. The culture is divided between the haves and the have-nots. Those with riches live in comfort in a high-rise apartment complex. Everyone else lives alone, where life is a day to day struggle.

In this world, there are those employed by the rich to go out and scavenge the land for supplies. Riley runs one such crew, under the employ of Kaufman. They have all sorts of tricks to distract the dead, though it is still a very dangerous job. One such expedition has an unexpected side effect. a Zombie begins uniting zombies in a march towards the city. It is unclear fully what causes this, but there is a rudimentary communication.

Meanwhile, Riley plots with his friends to get out of town and on their own. His second in command, Cholo, wants to become one of the elites and is trying to get in with Kaufman. Of course, Kaufman does not care about helping Cholo and uses his greed and ambition for his own benefit.

It is clear at this point, Romero has lost interest in the survivors. He is done suggesting mankind might win, and any attempt to rebuild is clearly futile. Land of the dead feels like it really is the end of the road for the franchise (it was not). It is a fairly decent film with some fun characters and interesting ideas at play, but at the same time, it never quite achieves the levels of its predecessors.

Day of the Dead begins with the films heroes landing a helicopter at the edge of a city. They are calling out as the camera explores a desolate empty world seemingly only occupied by animals. But then we see a shadow and the camera pans up to the mutilated face of a zombie.

Day of the Dead shows us a world over run by zombies. There are few members of the living. In fact, our heroes are part of a secret base of scientists and soldiers who are starting to wonder if they are all alone on the world. Set on a small island in an underground base, tensions between the civilian staff and military men are running high.

Captain Rhodes and his men are starting to become more aggressive, believing the scientists work unimportant. The military men just want to find another outpost and leave. But the lead scientist Logan is obsessed with the idea that he can “domesticate” zombies. His best example is the zombie Bub (which he explains is a nickname of his father). Bub seems to remember things like tools, books, phones. He mainly is mimicking what other people do (he simply thumbs through a Stephen King book, runs a disposable razor down his cheek, etc). But Logan believes it is more, and the end of the film does suggest that Bub is not as mindless as he seems.

Eventually, it all explodes, the scientists plan an escape, while Rhodes and his men plan to leave the island and the scientists behind. You might be surprised to find that not everything goes as planned.

A new theme enters Romero’s films with Day of the dead…one of…”Who is worse?” Not unlike Ripley telling Burke you don’t see the aliens “f***ing each other over for a percentage”, Rhodes and his men may be more terrifying as they bully and abuse the scientists. It has been said that as the movies have gone on, George Romero started to side with the zombies. Day of the Dead is the seeds of that.

It is not just the callous obsession of Logan or the cruelty of Captain Rhodes. It is, ultimately, Bub. Bub, who barely says a word is remarkably sympathetic. Sherman Howard packs a lot of emotion into his performance, and it is no surprise that Bub is a popular character.

Truthfully, Day of the Dead is my favorite Romero zombie movie. I like and admire the previous two films, but Day is my unabashed favorite. Being set beyond the zombie outbreak allows an exploration of that world based in something other than confusion and desperation. It asks the most intriguing questions about human nature and our desire to control situations that may be far from our grasp.

Tag: Day of the Dead

The Length of Love (The Book of Life, 2014)

They’re Pretending to Be Alive (Land of the Dead, 2005)

Choke On Em! (Day of the Dead, 1985)