In this third Living Dead movie, civilization is gone, and a few scientists and soldiers hide in a mine. As the lead scientist, Dr Logan (Richard Liberty), performs experiments on a zombies and tames one he calls Bub, the soldiers demonstrate that whatever humanity they might have had is long gone.
Yes, those are zombies. If you feel the need for more zombies, here they are. There isn’t much else to recommend this film. It has the wonderful cynicism of the earlier movies as it turns out that zombies are preferable to a majority of the humans. And the make-up is good. Very good (gore-master Tom Savini outdoes himself). But the sets are dull, the pace is slow, and the characters are stereotypes.
While the zombies have a few moments here and there, they have very little to do with the film until the last ten minutes. A majority of the movie involves unpleasant military men yelling at out-of-touch scientists. There’s a bit of philosophizing stuck in too. If that’s your movie, then the characters need to be engaging, the acting needs to be believable, the dialog needs to be clever, and the message needs to be interesting. But none of that is the case. The token black guy and Irish guy are likeable in a “I barely know them but don’t hate them” kind of way, though their accents could be toned down six or seven notches. The lead, Sarah (Lori Cardille), a plucky scientist, is so clueless that I just want a zombie to eat her. For reasons that can only be explained as bad script writing, she doesn’t believe that the psychopathic military leader, who is under extreme stress, has nothing to lose, and has legitimate grievances, would shoot rebellious scientists. OK. Sure. None of these characters are developed humans, but superficial and annoying clichés.
As for the acting, it is generally weak, although Sherman Howard isn’t bad as Bub, the semi-domesticated zombie. He also has the best part, with some humor and pathos. What does it say when the best acting is in a zombie role? Joseph Pilato is the worst offender against the god’s of low budget actors as Capt. Rhodes. Maybe in a comedy I might accept this level of overacting. Any time he’s onscreen, it’s painful.
While Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead can be seen as metaphors for the social problems of their day, that’s not the case here. One could try and force some kind of political statement (Reagan-era militarism) on the film, but in the end, this is just a bunch of unpleasant people stuck underground.
There is only so much that can be done in film with a zombie (after all, zombie don’t exactly do a lot) and Romero couldn’t think of anything new here. If you are a huge Romero/zombie fan, then you’ll like this, moderately.