It has been a very long time since I first watched Day Of The Dead and my memory of it had been reduced over the years to a vague feeling of disappointment and nausea. Disappointment because the film’s story was not what I had expected (or yearned for) and nausea as a testament to the films exceedingly gory scenes of death and disembowelment. Like a fine wine Day Of The Dead has grown more palatable with age. Still far from one of my favorite zombie flicks it still has much to recommend it . First off, the story is much better than I remembered. While most of humanity and civilization has been destroyed, either becoming a zombie or having been eaten by them, a rag tag group of scientists, military personnel, and civilians take refuge in an abandoned nuclear shelter in order to find a solution to the zombie plague. These diverse groups interaction with one another is what constitutes the bulk of the movie. The characters emotional trauma is really entertaining if a little overdone. I think when I first watched the movie I couldn’t understand why half of the characters had become so unhinged. Now I wonder what I was thinking, as most of the characters reactions are fairly consistent with how people react in highly stressful situations (and I think a zombie apocalypse qualifies as highly stressful) . I have heard a lot of talk about how unsympathetic all the characters in this movie are, and while there were certainly people in the movie who I was eagerly waiting to see eaten, there were also a few I absolutely wanted to see live and that I was rooting for. Additionally, I had completely forgotten the introduction of what has to be the ultimate anti-hero, Bub. His inclusion alone makes the movie worth watching, adding some poignant and hilarious moments towards the film’s end. As for the scenes of gore they were still pretty nauseating. Which is good.

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