The World's End: The Making of 'Day of the Dead'

At World's End: The Making of 'Day of the Dead' (2013)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This 85-minute documentary can be found on the Shout Factory! release of DAY OF THE DEAD and features interviews with George Romero, Tom Savini, Lori Cardille, Anthony Dileo, Jr., Sherman Howard, Joseph Pilato, Mark Tierno, John Harrison, Anthony DiLeo and many others who were involved in the production. There has been quite a bit of bonus material made for this film so this here really takes things to the next level and really gives fans a details look into the making of the film.

Pretty much every aspect of the production is covered from Romero's original script, how the film got made and of course the budget that was cut due to the director not being able to deliver a R-rated film. Many of the stories from the previous documentary and commentary tracks are repeated here but there's some new material as well as a few new things from Romero. Romero talks about the original screenplay and says that it really wasn't that big of a deal that he had to cut it down. He really downplays the legendary or mythical "epic" scale of it. He also continues to say that DAY is his favorite of the series but then states that SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD is his second favorite and he mentions how he hopes that film eventually finds an audience like this one did.

Obviously, if you're a fan of DAY OF THE DEAD then this here is a must see because there are just so many cast and crew members telling stories. Even better is that we're really given all sorts of details about the cast's reaction to fans and critics originally hating the film and then there's some nice talk about how the movie's popularity has grown over the years.

For fans of George A. Romero, it's always wonderful to see him tell stories of his movies, how they were made and what he meant by it. It's even more amazing to see the main cast of his magnum opus tell stories of the making of the movie. This gives deep insight into one of the classic zombie flicks.

And let's be real - Day of the Dead is by far the best of the trilogy; cinematography, makeup, special effects, story, acting, music, the props and locations, it all makes for a masterpiece. Seeing the cast and crew tell about it all is so immersive and fascinating. This is a must-see for Romero and zombie fans as well as cinephiles in general.

This third documentary on the works of George Romero really hit me in the feels and further saddened me about his passing. The man was a genius and we simply didn't get enough of his work.

This focuses entirely on 1985 classic Day Of The Dead and provides fantastic interviews with all the surviving cast and crew.

The documentary provides backstage footage, production stories and pulls the veil back on how some of the horrific gory special effects were pulled off which I believe were well ahead of their day.

It addresses the poor reception and the movies cult status.

I really enjoyed it and though it does seem to drag it provides a lot of highly interesting content that any fan of Day Of The Dead will enjoy.

The Good:

Highly insightful

The Bad:

Spotty in places

Things I Learnt From This Documentary:

Gary Howard Klar has never read the bible

Smoking during an interview makes you look like a disrespectful tool

Bub on a girls butt cheek sounds like the least sexy tattoo ever

No pun intended - and actually something I could have used for the feature movie! We have Bub - a zombie that inspired so many other ... well zombies but also filmmakers in creating zombies! The naturel evolution of things one might say ... well sort of. Because if it was all natural others might have thought of it, yes? Or maybe no - everyone was trying to copy him.

The documentary highlights the issues in the making, but also the great things that came from the movie. The connections between Romeros movies (zombies of course, I know, but also why he decided to choose the themes he chose). It's a shame that the Godfather of zombie movies never got the budget he deserved to do a really big one. That said, as we can see here (quite a lot of blood filled behind the scenes and infamous stories - even the one Joe knows everyone has heard of - quite the stinker as one might say).

I reckon real fans might know most of the stuff discussed here. But it still is great seeing heads talking about maybe the most underrated of the three original dead movies by Romero ... and the one where he makes amends for his use of Barbara in Night of the living Dead .. by casting a woman in the lead! And what a character Lori is able to play - Romero always ground breaking! Here you can see why ...