Day of the Dead. 1985. USA. Written and directed by George A. Romero. With Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joe Pilato, Jarlath Conroy and Richard Liberty. 35mm. 100 min.
If Night of the Living Dead takes on race and the nuclear family and Dawn of the Dead is a radically anti-consumerist farce, the concluding chapter in the trilogy, Day of the Dead, is nothing less than George A. Romero’s treatise on human nature itself. In one of the final remaining human outposts in a post-zombie world, a group of scientists and their military escorts toil in an underground bunker, searching for a cure for the plague of the undead. But as the flesh-eating hordes close in and supplies run low, humanity’s greatest hits—megalomania, avarice, paranoia, denial, jealousy—quickly gain traction. Three decades into the series, the only remaining question seems to be: Are we even worth saving?