Day of the Dead

"The darkest day of horror the world has ever known!"

1985 1h 41m EN

👍

7.0

SOLID

🍅

61%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.1

IMDB

★7.0TMDB · 1,459🍅61%Rotten Tomatoes●60Metacritic★7.1IMDB · 78,989

HorrorDramaMystery

Synopsis

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As the world is overrun by zombies, scientists and military personnel in an underground Florida bunker must decide on how they should deal with the undead.

“The darkest day of horror the world has ever known!”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Lori Cardille
Sarah
Terry Alexander
John
Joseph Pilato
Rhodes
Jarlath Conroy
McDermott
Anthony DiLeo Jr.
Miguel
Richard Liberty
Logan
Sherman Howard
Bub
Gary Klar
Steel

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: George A. Romero
Writers: George A. Romero
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $3.8M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 9.1× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

41 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Living Dead Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by George A. Romero, shot by Michael Gornick. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Pasquale Buba shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Lori Cardille and Terry Alexander and Joseph Pilato carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "The darkest day of horror the world has ever known!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

George A. Romero directs. Michael Gornick behind the camera. Pasquale Buba cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $3.8M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Made its money back 9.1× over at the box office.
341 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
4Part of the "Living Dead Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
5Directed by George A. Romero, shot by Michael Gornick. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Editor Pasquale Buba shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Lori Cardille and Terry Alexander and Joseph Pilato carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "The darkest day of horror the world has ever known!".
9IMDB entry: tt0088993 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 14 themes, including "florida", "insanity", "bunker", "halloween".

The technical file

Cinematography: Michael Gornick
Editing: Pasquale Buba
Makeup / hair: Tom Savini
Stunt coordinator: Christine Forrest
Runtime: 101 min · 1h 41m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $3,750,000
Box office: $34,000,000
Return: 907% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: Day of the Dead (1985)
Rotten Tomatoes: 61% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 60/100
IMDB rating: 7.1/10 · 78,989 votes
MPAA: Not Rated

Awards

2 wins total

Sitges Film Festival Best Actress award

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Part of

Living Dead Collection

Night of the Living Dead is a series of zombie horror films written and directed by George A. Romero beginning with the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead written by Romero and John A. Russo. The loosely connected franchise predominantly centers on different groups of people attempting to survive during the outbreak and evolution of a zombie apocalypse.

Also by

George A. Romero

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Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2024-05-07
★ 7/10
We learn pretty quickly that the world has been zombified and that scientist "Sarah" (Lori Cardille) might be part of the last dozen or so people left in the world who still prefer their food cooked! They use an helicopter to get about the place then take refuge deep underground in a military bunker run by the slightly maniacal "Rhodes" (Joseph Pilato). It's fair to say that there's quite a degree of tension amongst these survivors. The military element is asserting itself over the folks who are trying to find a cause for and solution to the plague on the surface. Things come to an head with "Prof Logan" (Richard Liberty) takes his experiments trying to re-humanise these creatures just one step too far for the heavily armed soldiers, and a deadly split occurs that could spell doom for everyone! Now the acting here is pretty terrible, and the writing does little to help with that but George Romero does well to create an increasing sense of claustrophobic menace as tempers fray and the human beings factionalise into groups more dangerous to each other than their topside terrors. It's the last half hour than enlivens this, though, as the civilian conclude that they need to get airborne and head for a quiet Caribbean beach. The plot is a little more sophisticated, there is the semblance of science here, but essentially it's all about hordes of marauding corpses - I'm sure I saw a tutu-clad ballet dancer amongst them - bent of a bit of gobbling. Even when the odds are stacked against people, they can still find reasons not to trust each other!

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