DAY OF THE DEAD (1985)

ZZZZZZZzzzzzz....hurrrghhh...zzzzz...huh?  Oh sorry, I didn't see you waiting there.  I've been trying to review DAY OF THE DEAD for the last few hours, but I keep falling asleep.  The film opens excitedly enough with a helicopter flying over a deserted town (as long as you ignore that moving car off to the left).  The occupants of the helicopter are some military folks looking for survivors after a zombie outbreak.  They don't see anybody from the sky, so they land and start yelling into their bullhorn.  After a few moments, zombies sloooowy start shuffling their way towards the helicopter.  The military people fly off.  See...I told you it was exciting!  Next, they return to their underground base where they bitch and argue with each other until at the 58-minute mark, when somebody finally gets killed by a zombie.

Over the years, I've revisited DAY OF THE DEAD a number times in hopes that I'll enjoy it, but I never do.  The first half is very slow and then, when the violence finally, happens...it's so by-the-numbers that it's still boring.  Bad acting, no likable characters, low budget, slow pace, tons of boring dialogue, Bub the world's most annoying zombie, unsatisfying beginning, middle and ending.  DAY OF THE DEAD had a lot of potential, but in the end it's just a boring snoozefest.  Skip it.

If you need me I'll be in my room checking my blood pressure while watching DAWN OF THE DEAD.

Part 1 - Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Part 2 - Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Part 4 - Land of the Dead (2005)
Part 5 - Diary of the Dead (2007)
Part 6 - Survival of the Dead (2009)
Remake - Dawn of the Dead (2004)

PRIMROSE PATH (1940)

Twenty-nine year-old teenager Ginger Rogers has a family ain't nobody jealous of.  Her mom's a hooker with a good heart, her grandma's a hooker with a heart made of fossilized rat poison, her little sister is a hooker in-training and her dad's a pants-shitting drunkard.  She lives in a rundown shack with her shitty family and she doesn't go to school since nobody makes her.  One day she decides to get some crabs (the crustacean kind) for her shitfaced dad, so she hitches a ride down to the beach from a kindly old man who offers her some free food at his hamburger stand.  The cook (McCrea) takes a liking to her and she (secretly) to him.  Things happen and they hook up, but she lied about her family.  What's gonna happen when he finds out the truth?

Ginger Rogers ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for the same years KITTY FOYLE directed by Frank Capra, but according to Joel McCrea: "I think they really gave it to her for PRIMROSE PATH but they were afraid of the subject matter in those days.  Even Frank Capra said it was a better film than KITTY FOYLE."  That's very interesting.  I haven't seen KITTY FOYLE, but I was surprised at Rogers outstanding performance in PRIMROSE PATH especially when you compare it to her terrible performance in 1942's ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON.  It's asking a lot of an 29-year-old actress to play a teenager in a serious role, but Rogers pulls it off.  Yeah, she looks too old, but her portrayal all the way down to the smallest mannerisms was spot on.  Very impressive.  The story on the other hand is interesting, but there wasn't enough tension and the abrupt ending was completely unsatisfying. 

Worth a watch for fans of McCrea and Rogers, but overall I was hoping for better.