Is Day of the Dead Better than Dawn of the Dead? 

I may lose my undead cred over this, but..... YES, Day is overall a better film than Dawn. I think because: A. Like Blade Runner, there’s a bit too much debate that depends on which version of Dawn you’re talking about. B. That stupid “hero” music that plays when Ken Foree decides to fight his way to the helicopter almost ruins Dawn for me. C. Dawn’s opening sequence is incredible, probably right up through the protagonist’s helicopter escape from the city but the potential best antagonist - the cop Woolley (“Woolley’s gone apeshit, man” “Hey, hey, hey!” ) exits the film way too fast, securing Cpt. Rhodes as the best villain in any Romero Dead movie 4. Rhodes has the best death scene in the trilogy as well 5. It’s easy to forget how much Dawn saga in the time between the mall is secured and when the bikers show up - Day’s tension percolates from start to finish 6. Bub is the trilogy’s most distinctive and only sympathetic zombie 7. Day has a “love theme” at the end lol 8. Day emphasizes “humanity is the real danger” almost as well as Night of the Living Dead did 9. Day has a larger, better ensemble cast overall 10. The most obvious reason: Tom Savini’s makeup/FX are superior

Just realized I went from ABC to numbers lol. My opinion stands.

@@sunshinesooperman5110 Awesome 😆 I agree. I also like Day better. As a kid first seeing them it was just more visceral and insane. Dawn is maybe a better satire of culture, as well as Night, but Day entertains me the most the whole way through.

The alligator was withdrawing money to go shopping, heard it was looking for a liquidation sale. Clip 8:42 shows John telling Sarah they should make some babies and as soon as ya know it we'll have a nation of incestuous people with biological disorders who can start a new, just like Adam and Eve.

Have to say not better. Dawn is the king of zombie movies in my opinion. Day is very good though.

He gets all the great lines in this movie. I miss Joe Pilato.

In movie history. Especially when viewed out of context.

Totally agreed.

I stand corrected.

''You've given us a mouthfull of Greek salad'' is another great one.

He was awesome. Up until he abandoned his men towards the end, it was easy to somewhat be on his side, as Logan was an insane madman who was using the deceased soldiers for his experiments.

yeah, he made a fantastic antagonist.

@@travismcdonald6576 Yeah. Logan keep on saying that he can domestic the zombies but just a few seconds ago he told the Captain that they are the minatory ones now. 400,000 to one according to his calculation. How is he going to "domestic" millions of zombies? Lol

His death was the most satisfying one in the entire movie!

The bastard was power crazy when he took over it went to his head.

It’s amazing. 😀

Only rivaled by the saw-off head gurgling in Return of the Living Dead.

Hes name is Pvt Torrez to be as The unfearless Soldier.

That was AMAZING!!!

That death was fucked up and tbh Torrez wasnt a Dick or do anything bad other than follow orders off his deranged captain.

And I still yell in the Rhodes' voice "Chock on 'em!" when friends steal my fries.

Tombstone! ...stone... stone... *zombie moan*....

@@metalgrinch "Jesus, Mary 'n Joseph! *takes a sip from a flask*

"You aint ever going to figure it out. The same way they never figured out why the stars are where they are. It aint mankind's job knowing that. So you're wasting time, Sarah. And time is all we got left, ya know"

"Forget it, Billy-boy.. it's a dead place. Just like everywhere else, y'know.. listen-- you can hear it over the engines.."

Same Amen 2 that brother

💯 agree!!!

Well, for realism, that wouldn't happen like that, but it is a masterwork in effects. The best for me, is the pen in 2001.

My only issue is what alot of others had, the constant yelling back and forth was a bit too much. But the setting gave it such a great atmosphere and Romero/Savini were at their very best. I like 'Dawn' the most but this is definitely worthy of the argument.

Yup. Same here. Hated it after I first watched it but I grew to really appreciate the entire film.

I agree. As a kid I didn't like it. I was comparing it too much to dawn of the dead. This is a much darker film, and I've grown to appreciate that more. This also has the best gore and some great actors. Lori cardille makes a great leading lady and joe pilato is an awesomely psychotic villain.

I named my now deceased beloved cat Bub over 15 years ago….This is one of my favorite American Horror movies….Big horror fan here and I understand your thoughts….✌️

True but I knew even as a kid that he was just looking out for his men.

until he wasn't

He delivered some good lines.

J**gle bunny head😂 wouldn't get away with that now

Bub is more patriotic than any president we've had in the past decade 😂

@@nameredacted1176 I'd vote for Bub. He'd probably fix our country real quick......or chomp down on his vice president. Either way, it'd be entertaining.

Hello Aunt Alicia.

@@recentlybeheaded SARAH'S RESEARCH!! 😂

His term just ended.

But that is part of the journey. Back then, we would wander the aisles of the video store, picking up any and every video case. After renting everything that was interesting, you started to gambles. Sometime it was a dud, other times is was a hidden gem. Overall it was all fun. They just dont make em like they used to.

Give thanks to that branch of your family that allowed you at eight or nine to watch this! I had my mom and dad making sure my brother and I (and our friends) couldn't watch the film Predator (aside from the very opening of the film) when we were like....11 and 9! Fuck !!! It still pisses me off to this day and for a long period, made me entertain the idea that R--rated films were naturally better than any other lesser rated film!

@Captain Brandon Punk & Horror Lover Same here. I think it's common for directors to lose some of that passion when money is thrown at them as opposed to them fighting to get it. I grew up with Romero, Carpenter, Landis etc and they all made great films back then, but suffered later on. Land was okay but I never got the Big Daddy zombie being aware (Bub was trained to be that way) and also that lame ending of "they're just looking for a place to live"... no, they're dead... they're f**king dead, and you want to teach them tricks (or in this case, let them wander off after chomping on a few hundred families). Diary and Survival just didn't work for me, especially that line at the beginning of Diary where the lead says "I added music" when she's talking about her home movie. Yeah, you'd do that wouldn't you. "Hmm, I wonder what works for when my bestie got chewed". Still, Romero gave us some great films and not just his zombie trilogy. I liked Knight Riders, Monkey Shines was a great thriller and Creepshow still stands out as a great horror/comedy.

It's definitely right at the top of the list. Personally I love 'Land of the Dead' and 'Diary of the Dead' as well. Romero carried along pretty well when he was allowed to have free reign. 'Land of the Dead' was the only time he really got a STUDIO Budget and he did some great stuff with it. The cinematography and acting were top notch. Dennis Hopper was awesome. Gotta give thanks to '28 Days Later' and the remake of 'Dawn of the Dead' because it showed studios that well made zombie films could make money. Romero deserved it after all those years.

Nah. Dawn is still better. Outside of Bub, there isn't a single memorable zombie here...sure they all look better FX-wise...but there's no sense that these were real people before they were zombies - none of them have any individual character (compare them to Hare Krishna, Nurse, Airport, kids, obese guy, etc. in Dawn). The zombies here are just the weather...like a storm in a Gothic that forces all the diverse characters to spend the night in the haunted castle together so we can watch them consume each other with their character flaws. Unfortunately none of these characters or their flaws are as interesting as those that came before. Sarah is at best a discount Fran, and Rhodes is just Cooper with a gun and some lackeys. The rest of the cast is utterly forgettable...Hell, even Johnny with 5 minutes of screen time is more interesting than the cardboard characters in this movie.

@@jackmars931 disagree, a lot of these zombies have looks of agony on their faces ( bandana chick is my fav) the details of how they died you can see it on most of them. You get soldier zombies, a clown, a ballerena, a dude with a cigar in his mouth, dishes zombie, a football player... among others. If you are comparing zombies day is gonna win, which film is better is up to personal opinion. one is much darker and one is kinda funny, action packed but also pretty creepy too. I love both of em anyway though

@@seanmills7586 zombie with miner hat when Steel knocks it off, "nice hat ass wipe" 😆

@@blackbeansmatter1280 fish brain! lmfao

I can make a case like this for all three films. They are all classics.

This is true on all counts. 😀

The old MEDIA HOME ENTERTAINMENT box if I recall.

@@travismcdonald6576 yes!!

@@josephfragosa7023 It may be strange, but one thing I will always remember about video stores is the smell.

@@zombiTrout that smell is unforgettable. I miss going to the video store with my grams and getting lost in the aisles with her. Just picking up the boxes and looking at the artwork was a past time for us.

@@zombiTrout and the cheap carpet .

Pretty nuts to think that for the longest time, people thought this was not only the worst Dead flick but a bad zombie movie in general. It’s great to see that the last decade and overall time has been kind to Day and aged like a fine wine! I’ll never forget renting this from a Blockbuster in 2004 and cementing my love for zombie flicks that Resident Evil and the Dawn remake helped kickstart and then during the same year The Walking Dead started to publish and I started reading with issue 9. Zombies in 2003-2010 were just so cool and so much fun. Couldn’t get enough of it!

The effects are amazing even today for sure.

Haha! It really is like the Baldwin scene. That's fantastic.

My thoughts exactly!

If I had to boil it down to a simple value judgment- both Night and Dawn are endlessly rewatchable. Day is not.

Day is the best movie of them all.

Fair but in my opinion Day is better than Dawn. Even more layered.

well said

It depends what you prefer - you want zombie action? Or human dialogue / conflict plus zombies

I hear you!

I think that at least once a day.

Haha! My goal is always to make someone shoot liquid out of their nose. And I think about both George's every day. They were more right than they could have imagined and I'm constantly wondering what they'd made of the insanity in the world today. Huge losses.

He reminds me of the fellow who played Larry Underwood in the original "The Stand" - Adam Storke, I think?

I'm with you on all counts here.

@@TheHorrorGeek literally was watching it at 3 am, lol

@@TheHorrorGeek it's really an anomaly for the genre in the way it tells this super bleak story in as lighthearted a way as possible, presumably out of consideration for the audience. Feels more like a piece of 70s cinema in that way, and sometimes like a silent film, even.

But what about when all the zombie and bub at the end get stuck under ground

Good point! Bub IS the best character

bub can run his own store, by zombies for zombies. lmao

No worries -- there'll be more live ones. :-)

Had to get a Leon Kennedy reference in there.. :p

@@TheHorrorGeekRight! lol!

I'll cop to not being a great parallel parker either. The good thing about Florida is there aren't very many places where you ever have to do it. I've literally done it four times in my life.

Yeah, I had no idea that this video was going to be this timely. I mean, I started making it before last week happened... :p

Exactly

Thank you! Hope you enjoy the video!

Real question: Are the sequels that followed Land, Diary, and Survival of the Dead all way underrated?

I need to revisit all three of those.

@@letsgetphysicalmedia6679 I am probably one of the few people that actually liked all three of those.

Solid points!

And the first one I ever saw was Dawn.

Hahaha! that's awesome.

I think at the end of the original script, someone dies, but DOESNT come back-leaving the survivors to think that it's all over finally.

I'm with you 100% here.

What was the original script?

@@jacksonia7724 You can find the script online pretty easily. Basically Romero wanted a $7 million budget for the original script because it was much bigger in scope. He wanted to show how they were training a zombie army to fight the zombie hordes. The studio didn't want to spend that money with the amount of gore in the film so they dropped the budget to $3.5 million and cut those scenes. A lot of the unused ideas ended up in Land of the Dead ($15 million budget and released by Universal).

@@Ataraxia462 damn. That would’ve been cool to see

One moment from that script always comes back to me and there's some evil doctor (who changed for the actual film) and he ties one female survivor to a post and forgets she's there or something, and then the zombies break in (as they always do). Just the thought of that stuck with me.

Yes please - or maybe a two-parter comparing the original and the remake?

Oh my, I hope you're all right. I'm glad you're able to watch -- the videos will always be here for you. :-)

Thank you. I’m still trying to figure out what I can and can’t show. It would be easier if the rules didn’t change in every video.

I thought that one was pretty good. :p

thank you for watching! :-)

It's just one of those things I've always wondered about. I figure he meant they really made it to the island, but the way he cuts it, you could wonder if she actually died there and these were her last thoughts like An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge.

@@TheHorrorGeek Not often you see a Bierce reference on a horror channel. Well done.

@@TheHorrorGeek dude... you've got my thoughts rolling now. very interesting theory! Some say the calendar was a reference for their eventual doom as well. there is a lot of subtle little things to pick up on

I make a comment about that in the video -- Romero was way ahead of the curve.

I used to laugh at the part when the scientist has to tell people they must forego the niceties of funeral arrangements and kill turned family members on sight. I was always thinking “duh, of course”. Then I got to 2020 and people are still traveling for the holidays and going to parties. Sigh.

Haha! I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to mention Fido. 😂

Romero was right on. I think about him every day and what he'd say about the state of the world right now.

@@TheHorrorGeek well, normally I wouldn't be glad that there are a few folk's not with us anymore. As macabre as it sounds, and believe me I know it does, but there are quite a few people that even if they weren't gone, would be simply from a broken heart because of the state of affairs today. And obviously I'm not "glad "they aren't here, more so that at least they don't have to witness the gradual devolution if a country a great deal of them fought and had friends die for. Fought for nought. Damn shame. Anyway thank you sir! I'll be at the next live. You'll know when the werewolf gets there brother!

@@TheHorrorGeek long sentences full of multi-syllable profanity would be my guess. Oh wait, thats what I tend to think.

@@JnEricsonx Jon, you've got more company than you'd think as far as profanity laced tirades concerning our current world climate. I personally try and remain somewhat stoic about it. I can't tell you how many times a day I think to myself "how would Jeffrey Labowski retort /think /act about this??!! " and simply try and abide like the dude. Take 'er easy for the rest of the sinners in the world. The dude abides Jon! Be well buddy 💪 🐺

@@nameredacted1176 I'm just tired of my cynicism meter having the needle not just buried, but spun back around to the start.

I think day is an amazing movie, but ok.

No...............

Yes.

Do you know which one?

@@jacksonia7724 All he ever told me was that he was in a leisure suit, but I was never able to find him, lol.

@@stonewallkotdm that’s really cool though

Thank you! I'm a one man show writing wise most of the time...so I always miss some good jokes. :p

Thanks! And me either. 😂 I’m over here putting out high quality dad jokes - where are my million subs? 😂

Aw man, I’m so sorry to hear about your cat. 😢

@@TheHorrorGeek thank you. That really means alot

I lost a dog almost 3 years ago. I still haven’t gotten over it. 😢

@@TheHorrorGeek yeah man it's rough. They become part of your family and best friend. My dog axle I got when I was 5 and we grew up together. He was a pitbull(friendliest dog you'd ever meet although a lil hyper but sonwas I aha) he died when I was 17 and I still think about him almost daily. My cat molly was the same. Just a very special animal.. one of a kind. Animals are the best man.. they love you unconditionally and never judge. Seriously thanks for the kind words. You're truly a great guy my friend.

I totally forgot about that commercial! And that's a crazy story about Joe Pilato. I never got the chance to meet him, but I've heard all kinds of funny stories about him from friends who knew him.