REVIEW: Day of the Dead: The Need To Feed

Editor’s note: This is one of the few zombie films I wasn’t able to have myself sit through and would like to commend Mr. Jackson for his fortitude and being able to fully watch this film.

Director: Steve Miner
Actors: Mena Suvari, Ving Rhames (only two relatively well known actors in the entire film)

Being a fan of the zombie genre films since I first saw the B&W George A Romero classic ‘Night of the Living Dead’, I felt compelled to view this film. Maybe I should have waited for it to come on late night cable. The director of this turd is Steve Miner, a director we haven’t seen in almost 20years and a screenplay written by Jeffrey Reddick better known for the Final Destination films. Miner actually had the balls in the special features to claim that he wanted his film version to be similar to the original Romero version. OK, epic fail on that one. The title is similar, the use of a military unit and the scenes inside an underground bunker are about the only similarities this film has with the original.

What doesn’t work in this film are the fast moving, wall crawling CGI zombies, the poorly researched military procedures, equipment, props and uniforms among just the few bad aspects of the film. The major problem is that the individuals responsible for costumes and technical advisory were seriously lacking, off behind the building getting stoned or suffered from the who gives a shit syndrome.

The premise of this film is that an infection breaks out in some BFE town in Colorado and the National Guard is called in to quarantine the area.

The first problem noticeable is that the National Guard soldiers who were called out for this ‘quarantine’ exercise (where was FEMA, the CDC, and the Red Cross plus local emergency services?) were wearing the old pattern BDU not the new pattern ACU that is now common issue to all Army units and the National Guard and can actually be purchased online or mail order. No excuse Mr. Director Steve Miner or technical advisor guy or whomever on your pathetic film was responsible for wardrobe that dropped the ball. Not one of them was wearing MOPP gear or the beret currently issued to all US Army units including the National Guard. Secondly, no one was wearing a K-pot or field gear aka TA-50, again available mail order or even knock-offs available through some online and mail order sources or believe it or not, any surplus store. The rank insignia on the female lead was way, way out of proportion and was actually something you see on a teaching chart for the Ricky Recruits to learn the rank structures. Then we have the wearing of a tactical holster but no field gear (?). No load bearing harness/vest also available at any surplus store or again mail order, duh.

The hummers apparently had license plates.

Hysterical.

No field hospital present, no police present except the locals, no state or county officers. In this day and age of CNN and internet broadcasts, failing to provide this type of realism even when making a non-realistic film is just bad workmanship.

Hummers with license plates?

WTF? Do your research.

No military hummer has a government license plate, they have bumper numbers denoting their unit, company and vehicle number, (564-D-1-1 or 373MI as an example) nor do they require keys to start, which that little fact seems to have eluded anyone working on the production yet that becomes a small plot device used later in the film. Little known fact, most military vehicles do not have a key ignition. That includes hummers, 2-1/2 ton trucks (1078), 5-ton trucks (1083), tanks, APCs, Bradleys and the Stryker. The only military vehicle with a key ignition would be the CUCV, staff cars, pickups, or any interagency motorpool vehicle that is not normally painted camouflage (these might also have license plates). Not to mention that the hummer’s marker lights didn’t work which led me to believe that it was a fake front end or maybe even a fake hummer body mounted onto a truck frame. (Wait, that’s the H2 and H3, my mistake.)
Then we have the male geek (a vegetarian who when infected refuses to ‘eat’) who likes the female lead yet neither of them can wear their uniform properly. He has his sleeves rolled up with the inside of the sleeve facing out. Only the Marines and some Naval units roll their sleeves that way. No Army unit and that includes National Guard units roll their sleeves in that fashion. And his statement that he had only been in the Guard for 7 months doesn’t make any sense, as he would still have his uniform worn properly. Even if you enlist in the Guard you still go through US Army basic and AIT and those courses would have drilled into his dimwitted brain the proper wearing of his uniform. Suvari, playing the female lead, has BDU style headgear with the overly large rank insignia attached to it as mentioned previously.

Ving Rhames, for shits and giggles, plays a captain, a rank that is not equal to his age even a National Guard officer and should have been at least a major but colonel would have been better and is carrying flex cuffs/zip cuffs incorrectly, has no load bearing harness but has a duty belt with canteen, holster and two way, and his radio didn’t have a mike clipped to his shoulder. On the topic of rank, where was his branch insignia on his collar device? Like the crossed rifles for infantry, crossed pistols for Military Police, etc or his unit patch on his left shoulder and the US flag on the right shoulder? Oh yeah, and all that weight on his belt and his pants aren’t falling down? Anyone, regardless of rank, if they wear a duty belt with any weight on it, they will want to have the matching suspenders to go with it because the weight will pull it down and make it uncomfortable for any length of time. Yo, Mr. Military Technical Advisor, where were you man were you? Off getting stoned like the props guy, location scout and costume advisor? You were sorely needed on this film.

SPOILER ALERT: Some items mentioned beyond this point may affect your viewing of this film. (As if what has already been mentioned hasn’t?)

Rhames’ character had the decency to die less than halfway through this direct to video flop and lets the lesser wannabe stars carry this film through. Maybe he knew how bad this film really was?

Later, thankfully towards the end, there is a scene where the survivors hit a gun store and somehow come up with full automatic weapons. Yeah, that makes sense. I don’t know of any gun store that openly keeps full auto weapons within easy reach of just anyone and last I checked, federal law makes it illegal to actually sell full automatic over the counter to anyone but another dealer who is in possession of the proper federal licenses not the mention no more imported automatic weapons are allowed since 1986.

There’s that research issue yet again rearing its ugly head. Kind of goes hand in hand with detail work.
That brings up the problem of why didn’t any of the military personnel have full field gear (I mentioned this before and it bothers me that no effort was made to at least be reasonably realistic) with M4 not M16 including the idiot who was at the radio station. This mental moron sees a situation that he has no idea how many hostiles are present, doesn’t bother to inform command at all by landline or commo, so he leaves a secure area to investigate thereby violating one of his general orders, not to quit my post until properly relieved, and gets waxed. Where was his Battle Buddy? No soldier, especially the standard ass in the grass grunt goes anywhere without his Battle Buddy. There are always two people assigned to anything. Again, a failure to properly research a small item that would have yielded more shock value and possibly made this film a little more tolerable than it was.

Then we have the problem with the prop/weapon master and the issue of firing your sidearm empty. In this case the Beretta M9 and the slide didn’t lock back? Most people with just a little bit of experience either real world or watching movies involving accurate weapons use will have noticed this, most especially in the older Lethal Weapon series. Gibson was always reloading and the slide was locked back on an empty magazine. That’s kind of a clue to the operator that they’re out and need to reload. By just looking at the weapon there is no visible sign unless the slide is locked in the back position thereby indicating an empty magazine. Duh. Mr. Weapons Master, what were you doing? Whoever was in charge of this gaggle of pathetic filmmaking is obviously lacking skill in those prescribed fields of alleged expertise.

One of the most laughable scenes, there were so many, was when the female lead driving the hummer gets it stuck on dry ground on a minimal incline and the camera shows only one rear wheel spinning. OK people, quick lesson, the hummer has four wheel drive and both rear wheels get equal power, just like in most cars and trucks on the road today, if it’s not in 4wd no way would only one rear wheel spin. If by some chance it was stuck, they are equipped with tow cables and PTO winches as well as just reaching down and shifting into 4Low, backing up and driving on. But, that was a scene that just had to be in the script and so it was. I damn near wet myself laughing so hard.

In the final scenes of the film, it allegedly takes place inside an old Nike missile base. Well anyone can do the research and find out that Nike sites were nowhere on the scale portrayed. And most Nike sites were on the surface with minimal subsurface facilities. Yo, Mr. Site Finder, Property Master, Location Scout or whatever they call your useless ass, what the hell were you doing? Do you realize that you could have actually used an existing, decommissioned missile silo for those scenes? You based the film in Colorado, well hell man, there’s an old Titan site you could have used that would have made more sense and added more realism than using a Nike site and its only 60 miles from Denver. Damn, most of those Nike sites are above ground so that kind of leaves out those intense underground corridor scenes. Worse case, there are several Atlas sites that could have been used. Oh, and one more clue, missile silos are normally flush with the ground not sticking up 20-30feet in the air like a factory smokestack or some sort of holding tank.

I fully understand that this film obviously didn’t have a large budget but realistically, I believe it could have done a better job at least on the technical side by just some minimal research and less money spent on the truly awful CGI effects. Even if the research ‘enhanced’ movie sucked worse than this 87minute tragic cinema failure of overblown CGI effects, and poor gore splatter, at least the characters would have looked, walked and talked like real soldiers, had their weapons operate appropriately and the shooting locations would have had that look to them that made it seem at least realistic given the premise of the story. Just maybe with that little added time and money spent to get it right; it’s possible this might have gone big screen instead of going straight to video. Consider the increased fear factor if seemingly trained soldiers were up against a swarm of the undead.

Does any film company ever listen to their MTA? Why even list an MTA in the credits if you don’t pay attention to what they suggest? This film needed someone who had an idea about how to make a zombie film on the scale of a Romero film or at least equal to the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. Day of the Dead 2008 tried so hard to be a true zed flick and failed badly. Lack of plot development, character development and trying too hard to make the remaining black soldier the cliché of all tough guy ‘gangsta’ wannabes from the wrong side of the tracks. Overall, this is a weak film not worth adding to your library of zombie classics.

Mr. Miner, after all this time you return to the industry with this garbage? Don’t quit your day job at McDonald’s they still need someone to wipe the trays down and mop out the toilet stalls.

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