Day of the Dead

Scientists and soldiers share an underground missile silo. There are perhaps a dozen humans left communicating with anybody and they cannot stand each other.

Romero wanted an epic and had his budget halved when he refused to cut for an R rating. What he made instead is a claustrophobic chamber piece about institutional collapse, which is a better film than the epic would have been.

The effects are the reason it is now revered. Savini had a full year and the results, particularly the sequence involving a soldier being pulled apart while still talking, have not been surpassed practically.

Bub, the zombie being conditioned by a scientist, is the most sympathetic character in it, and the film knows exactly what it is saying by that.

Reviews in 1985 were dismissive. It is now widely considered the best of the three.