Day of the Dead (1985)

"Day of the Dead" has always been my favorite of Romero's "dead series", by far. Nothing against "Night" and "Dawn" which are two flicks I have a strong fondness for, as most horror fans do - I just usually find myself more inclined to throw in "Day" because I just typically remember it being the most bloody and memorable of these films.

During the undead uprising established in the previous entries of this apocalyptic saga, we find a group of scientists and military personnel holed up in an underground base that they're using as a research facility. Their purpose, mainly, is to round up zombie 'specimens' to be dissected in order to find out what makes them tick. Controversy rises over how the experiments are being conducted and what the general 'end game' is they're trying to reach - one being to reverse the zombie infection and the other to train the undead into behaving more 'human'. This friction between the scientists and the short-fused army captain and his men reaches its breaking point as the zombie hordes above them thicken...

It always felt to me like everything was just done right in this one - from the underground bunker setting, down to the inclusion of a mad scientist with his "brainy" zombie-pet and, of course, Tom Savini's masterful FX work which is the nastiest we've seen in a Romero "dead" film. Entrails are spilling left-and-right, mouthfuls are chewed from peoples flesh and the zombies look significantly more "rough" and decrepit this time around. Just an all-around awesome flick! Again, not to take anything away from the first two films in the franchise, but "Day" fucking OWNS. Feel free to disagree, as I know a lot of people favor "Dawn", but if you ask me, they nailed it here and, as far as I'm concerned, this was where the series ended. For me, at least...