Past due for me to review this gem - it's previously appeared here on my blog as #19 on my all time Top 20 Horror Films List. This movie didn't garner a lot of praise upon its initial release in 1985. It had the unfortunate task of following the much loved Dawn of the Dead and was soon forgotten..I was only 9 at the time and of course, not allowed to see it. Only pictures in Fangoria magazine were what made me aware of it...and that's the way it would be until several years later. Arguably the darkest of Romero's original three, it features a world completely overrun by the Dead. A group of scientists and soldiers are holding up in an abandoned bunker underground and losing their sh*t slowly but surely.
Captain Rhodes is one of the most unintentional hilarious horror characters of the 1980s - he's always yelling, squinting and cussing. In a bleak story, he provides a ton of comedic material while retaining his hard ass military persona. Sarah, the lone female, leads the scientist contingent that is opposite of Rhodes' military posse in terms of sanity and approach to their situation. Smack in the middle is Dr. "Frankenstein" Logan who is performing experiments on the corpses in an attempt to figure out the cause of all this. He even has a "pet" - a zombie he has trained - named Bub.
Bub turns out to be the most sympathetic character in the film, and the film never suffers for it. What should be a totally ridiculous aspect of a "domesticated" zombie in fact elevates the movie to something more than its predecessors. That's no small feat.
All in all, the "final" movie in Romero's original trilogy is a festival of extreme gore, dark humor, and colorful characters with sharp dialogue. It's an 80s movie (pop synth score!) for sure and I'm glad it's finally getting its due in today's world. It's a perfect companion and continuation of Romero's first two films.
5 out of 5 Khans.
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