Question about "Day of the Dead" ending

**jdog** · 19-Mar-2006

i have probably seen this movie over a hundred times and absoulutly love it, but the ending has always made me wonder.
when sara opens the door to the choper and the zombies grab her by the head, they never show what happens next.
we see sara waking up on a island like it was all a dream.
I have had alot of friends ask me if it was a dream and say that they don't get the ending when i show them this film.
i have always just figured GAR did it that way so that we could draw our own conclusion to the ending. myself i like the mystery that the ending of "day" leaves with me after i see it. thats one of the reasons i love it so much.

let me know what your thoughts are about the ending. i would like to hear what the different takes are.

**MinionZombie** · 19-Mar-2006

It's just Sarah dreaming about escaping from the camp the previous day (or a couple of days ago I'd imagine) and dreaming that it didn't pan out. It also dupes us momentarily, and harks back to the beginning of the movie with Sarah's other nightmare - but this time things are going to be alright...soaking up some sunshine on an island.

I think it's a pretty straight forward ending personally.

**Craig** · 19-Mar-2006

It's just a dream she has once she gets to the island.

**Deadman_Deluxe** · 19-Mar-2006

Well i think that is a bunch of bull TBH ...

The way i always interpreted the ending is as follows ... they make it out of the compound and get to the chopper at the landing pad, which if you remember was low on fuel/had not been refueled.

Sarah opens the door to find a zed inside which makes a sudden lunge for her ... she passes out, falling to the floor.

The guys arrive just seconds later, take the zed inside the chopper down and dump the body outside, pick sarah up and put her in the chopper and then take off at speed in an upwards direction.

The island scene that follows is there to let us all know that they DID actually have enough fuel to make it to the island in one piece.

**axlish** · 19-Mar-2006

Deadman's or Minion's, one or the other is the answer. I am leaning towards Minion's because why the hell would a couple of zombies be hanging out in a helicopter with the doors closed?

**jdog** · 19-Mar-2006

Originally Posted by MinionZombie

It's just Sarah dreaming about escaping from the camp the previous day (or a couple of days ago I'd imagine) and dreaming that it didn't pan out. It also dupes us momentarily, and harks back to the beginning of the movie with Sarah's other nightmare - but this time things are going to be alright...soaking up some sunshine on an island.

I think it's a pretty straight forward ending personally.

i also think that when sara is waking up on the island she was dreaming about the escape the previous day or whatever. this is always what i thought, but i just wanted to see what others thought about it, and what there take was on the ending.

**deadpunk** · 19-Mar-2006

wasn't there a post sometime back concerning a different 'audio' ending? Or was that Dawn?

**jdog** · 19-Mar-2006

Originally Posted by deadpunk

wasn't there a post sometime back concerning a different 'audio' ending? Or was that Dawn?

i belive it was on the dawn sound track. when suposidly in the end credits you can hear the hellicopter sputer and run out of gas just as the credits end.
i think thats what it was if i remember right.

**MinionZombie** · 19-Mar-2006

Indeed, I hadn't thought of that - why would there be a couple of zombies - in the real world, not a dream world - be chilling out Florida style in the chopper itself. The zombie hoard was quite far away ... guess two could have gotten over there...but why would they go and sit in a chopper? lol.

Yeh I think I'll stick with where I was going, but it's interesting, I'd always thought everybody else thought the same as me, or just understood it as a straight forward ending...hmmm.

**Philly_SWAT** · 19-Mar-2006

This is the answer.

The ..."confusion" that exists with the interpretation of the ending of Day is easily explained by common movie making techniques. Ever notice how in a horror movie that at an intense moment, with the music getting eerie, with the hero slowly searching about in the dark SCREECH!! a cat jumps out of nowhere, creating a false scare. Now think, in your whole life, have you ever seen a cat just jump out across you like that, screeching like they are on fire, for no particular reason? Of course not. It is actually quite rediculous if you think about it. Even seen that drawing on the staircase that is in the shape of a square, and it appears to keep going up into itself, even though that is impossible? It is one of those optical illusion drawings. Taking a mixture of the two things I have just said, that is what happens at the end of Day. GAR fools us, the audience, with that last scene. We just saw them the three of them meet up in the cave, fight their way to the end, climb out, unlock the gate, and make their way to the chopper. That was in "real time" all one long stretch of time. For it all of a sudden to be a dream, wel you would have to go all the way back to before John Amplas gets shot to where someone could legitimatlly be asleep to be having a dream. And that would make the last third of the movie one big dream, which is of course rediculous as well. So like the cat which jumps out for no reason, you have to accept that GAR just did it as a clever way to get from the escape scene to the beach scene, throwing in the "zombie dream" scene even though it makes no logical sense within the framework of the movie at the time.

Does that make sense?

**MinionZombie** · 19-Mar-2006

Orrrrr...

I believe there is a momentary pause in the tempo of the sequence between unlocking the gates and then proceeding to the helicopter - at that point Sarah could conceivably 'cut in' with her dream...or she's essentially just recollected the whole ordeal again in her sleep (I don't mean we saw her nightmare)...hmmm.

**tju1973** · 19-Mar-2006

Day is the perfect Dead movie so far-- to me anyway... I liked the music, the atmosphere, and all it tried to be. While it was short of the original script, it still is tops in my book.

**Philly_SWAT** · 19-Mar-2006

I dont think that the pause is any different than the pause between any two shots in any move.

**Dawg** · 20-Mar-2006

I don't think it was the next day anyway. She was marking off the last days of October I believe at the beginning and at the end, she was well into the beginning of November. Is that right? That leads me to believe that they were on the island for maybe a week or so, because I don't think the entire movie took place over a week, but a day or two.

Dawg