John

[AcesandEights]

That little speech of his is one of my favorite moments in any movie. Gotta love the echoing "Tombstone! ... own...own..." and zombie moan that can be heard off in the distance afterward.

[darth los]

Rhode's tirades, john's speech. That movie has some of if not the best dialouge of any horror film I've seen.

[Trin]

... and in a movie that was criticized for having too much talking and not enough action. I loved the dialogue and introspection as well.

[bassman]

That movie has some of if not the best dialouge of any horror film I've seen. Hell....I would drop "horror" out of that sentence and it still rings true. Most people claim Dawn, but I claim Day as Romero's masterpiece...

[JDFP]

Hell....I would drop "horror" out of that sentence and it still rings true. Most people claim Dawn, but I claim Day as Romero's masterpiece... I completely agree. It's not my most favorite Romero flick, it's my most favorite horror film PERIOD. It just has the ability, even after seeing it for about 19,000 times now, to scare the piss out of me. It actually seems as fresh today as it ever has (perhaps more so now with the state of affairs the world is within). I used to have a recurring nightmare of walking around the facility after everyone is dead and all the ghouls are rotted away. Nothing but all that empty space and eerie hallways and me. Somehow the notion of the emptiness and loneliness of it all really terrifies me. Hell, think about it for what it would realistically be like for the 12 of them there at the beginning of the flick. As far as they know they are the last humans on earth. Imagine that loneliness and fear and sadness and pain all mixed together? I don't know how they held up like they did for as long as they did without going insane personally. I would have been like McDermott drinking everything I could get my hands on and hoping for a quick death. j.p.

[krakenslayer]

Romero himself always cites Day as his favourite of the trilogy. When I saw him introduce Land at the Edinburgh Film Festival a few years ago, he said he's always stunned at how well it holds up given the fact that the script was basically thrown together in a desperate rush after Laurel said "no" to the epic version. Personally, I think a little more action wouldn't have hurt it. Maybe a guns blazing zombie-gauntlet rush back to the chopper at the start, or the appearance of a dying and gun-toting and very pissed Rhodes at the helipad at the end (with the "choke on em" scene taking place afterwards). But I think it stands up the best out of the trilogy.

[octo7]

Day was definitely my favorite romero flick and one of my favorite movies of all time. for me the lack of action was fine because the pay off at the end was just so over the top and insane and all the more fucked up because of it, sort of like Miike's Audition except a million times better. I also thought it had the best cast, best script and best cinematography of all of his movies still to this day.

[strayrider]

Of course in order to lower the chance of genetically defected inbred babies Sarah would have to mate with all of the men down there. Even Rickles and Steele. God help humanity! Imagine Rickles as quintuplets. -stray-

[octo7]

Lol!!!

[Trin]

Day is my favorite as well. There was a long period where I simply couldn't watch it because it scared me so bad. At the end where they have to run through the caves to escape. Dark, zombie filled caves, with no weapons... I also loved the whole setup and atmosphere. The semblance of safety with the crushing claustrophia of living under ground, combined with the eerie notion of having zombies throughout the living areas. Oh, and a mad scientist conducting experiments just down the hall. The discussions were the best. We learned more about the world in Day than we did in either Land or Diary. We also learned more about the zombie phenomenon. It made great use of the dialogue.

[AcesandEights]

Preach it, Trin! Preach it! I agree on all points, as Day has always, and still is, utterly disturbing, yet enthralling to me.

[bassman]

It's strange how so many people come here with Day as their favorite while most hated it when it was released. Makes you wonder how Romero's new films will be regarded in 20 years time.

[Neil]

"We don't believe in what you're doing here, Sarah. Hey! You know what they keep down here in this cave? Mon, they got the books and the records of the top five hundred companies. They got the defense dept. budget down here and they got the negatives for all your favourite movies. They got microfilm with tax returns and newspaper stories. They got immigration records and census reports and they got all official accounts of all the wars and plane crashes and volcano eruptions and earthquakes and fires and floods and all the other disasters that interrupted the flow of things in the good ol' US of A. Now what does it matter, Sarah, darling? All this filing and record keeping? We ain't ever gonna give a shit. We ain't ever gonna get a chance to see it all. Now here you come with a whole new set of charts and graphs and records. What you gonna do? Bury them down here with all the other relics of what once was? I'ma tell you what else. You ain't ever gonna figure it out. Just like they never figured out why the stars are where they're at. It ain't mankind's job to figure that stuff out. So what you're doing is a waste of time, Sarah, and time is all we got left, y'know? There's plenty to do. Plenty to do. As long as there's you and me and maybe some other people, we could start over. Start fresh. Get some babies. And teach 'em, Sarah, teach 'em never to come over here and dig these records out." Discuss. One of my favourite bits from any of the films!

[SymphonicX]

its a great speech and I'm glad someone has gotten the debate going.... I think it's necessary to look at John's attitude earlier in the movie....first with his statement "I won't leave my seat, and I'll keep the engine running" - also with his discouragement of Billy using the radio to contact survivors "forget it, Billyboy, it's a dead place..." John is seen, throughout the movie, to simply be performing his task of "flying the whirly bird" - he doesn't want involvement in the politics of the military/scientist conflict. He even goes as far to exclaim to Sarah (after she accuses him of being prepared to ditch it all without a "second thought") "shit man, I could do this even if all this wasn't going on". John simply doesn't believe in what the scientists are trying to achieve. Why? Because it seems that he sees the cyclical nature of humanity - he sees a world broken by inner conflict, to the point of humanity dying, and spends the last days of humanity's existence seeing more and more of this inner conflict - it all happens again albeit on a smaller and more isolated ground. The reason, I think, of why John's statement of "teaching them never to come here and dig these records out" is prominent in the movie is simply testament to him trying to avoid this cyclical nature transferring to the "new children" that he is theorising. ie: they don't come down here and make exactly the same mistakes that humanity has consistently made since it's inception. It's his way of "wiping the slate clean"

[octo7]

It's strange how so many people come here with Day as their favorite while most hated it when it was released. Makes you wonder how Romero's new films will be regarded in 20 years time. that's exactly what i have been thinking lately about recent movies being slated. even john carpenters vampires might be a future classic. perhaps ghosts on mars may even be revered as mediocre some day too