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Since watching Day of the Dead this past summer, I've kept coming back to two elements that seem to contradict each other in 2021, but maybe made sense in 1985 - a somewhat less (culturally) volatile, more optimistic decade. The first element is how “woke” Romero’s character structure is written. He essentially has an intelligent female lead supported by a clever black man, a sensitive Latino soldier, and three “allied” white dudes; a boozy Irish Catholic, constantly praying to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, along with two over-educated scientists, one of them referred to as Frankenstein. It's all of them versus a one dimensional group of dumb-ass white men, all of whom are racist, sexist, trigger happy military goons led by an evil, anti-science, tyrant commander.
Not only does this reek of "all cops are bad", but Romero goes on to literally humanize the zombies more than these nazified military officers (a concept Guillermo Del Toro unfortunately plagiarizes in Shape of Water). Even the least bit of character development could have gone a long way to help the audience feel some tension - allowing us to experience the actual undead crisis they all face together. Regardless, it still works as an effective horror movie, if you don’t project Twitter onto it. And in 1985, Day of the Dead actually fits with the anarchist, Repo Man sentiment, which was subversive but also humorous, avoiding today's trendy self-righteousness. Not unifying, but not polarizing either. It had it's place. I can respect that.
The second element (What I loved about the film!), is Romero's surprisingly visualized spiritual journey into a missile silo military base, aka “the 14 mile tomb”. Letting go of the above 2021 political perspective, we simply follow four apocalypse survivors (in search of life) down into purgatory where time, space, and meaning become oblique. The walls of time are purposely eroded from the opening sequence. Are they restored at the end? Not necessarily. More to explore there, I think.
Later it is suggested by John (black man) that maybe "...we're bein' punished by the Creator. He visited a curse on us. So that man could look at...what Hell was like. Maybe He didn't want to see us blow ourselves up, put a big hole in the sky. Maybe He just wanted to show us He's still the Boss Man. Maybe He figure, we was gettin' too big for our britches, tryin' to figure His shit out." This heavily suggests an action or perspective of God from the Old Testament. John's recommendation to make babies also adds a "be fruitful and multiply" component found in OT Israel. In the larger picture, Jewish eschatology seems present in Romero's mind, which makes sense - since he has also created a Christ figure out of the Latino soldier, Miguel (whose name means "who is like God", according to Google). Miguel is the most sensitive/vulnerable character - prone to abuse and torture, often being comforted, protected, and cared for by Sarah. Miguel becomes a military defector and an agent of liberation theology - a not very subtle allusion to Central American politics in the 1980s that involved the US, particularly in El Salvador, where archbishop Óscar Romero was martyred towards the beginning of a decade-long, very bloody civil war.
Miguel's eventual heroic act brings Óscar Romero (who was assassinated while serving communion) and Jesus together - as he goes above ground to release the zombie hoard, using himself as bait to bring them down into the silo to enact consequential justice against the evils of militarized narcissism. Traditional Catholicism believes that the Holy Eucharist (communion) isn't just a symbolic act of eating/drinking the consecrated body/blood of Christ, but a literal act. So when Miguel lays down on the elevator, the zombies are literally eating his flesh and blood as they go back down into Hell together. A Eucharistic sacrifice to be remembered!! (Phenomenal F/X makes this quite vivid)
While this is happening, Sarah, John, and the Irish Catholic dude knock off some zombies and eventually climb their way out of purgatory (great visual sequence). And Evil was conquered! Or at least confined. And if I'm reading the ending correctly, they arrive (symbolically resurrected) at an isolated paradise island that was earlier prophesied by John. Are they alive? or is this Heaven? a dream? I'm not sure - but wow! George Romero came heavy with the body, the blood, and the Bible in this one.
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