By the way if anyone hasn't and is interested, I would highly recommend reading Romero's original screenplay for Day of the Dead before it was drastically cut down and rewritten for practical, budgetary reasons into the final film we have today. It features many of the same cast of characters but has a much wider scope, about on a par with Dawn of the Dead and ends up being a much different story. The opening Florida search for survivors equivalent to the film's opening turns into a Marina shootout over an escape boat, rather than a helicopter ride back to the base. This is also where Miguel loses his arm and Sarah cauterises it, which instead became the big effect sequence in the middle of the film.
Then follows an escape to an island on which there is an underground bunker where zombie experiments are at a much more advanced stage than in the film version. They've been colour co-ordinated into groups to differentiate the wilder zombies from the more benign ones, to those that can actually be controlled and ordered around like soldiers under the command of Captain Rhodes and his troops.
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MIGUEL IS HIT AGAIN. He spins, falling to his knees. His RIFLE FIRES A LINE OF BULLETS INTO THE EARTH and the kicking of the gun knocks him back on his ass. He sits there bewildered for a moment, then he looks up to find himself directly facing CAPTAIN RHODES.
THE CAPTAIN is taken by surprise by MIGUEL'S lunatic eyes. For the first time since the battle began his smile fades altogether, replaced by a flush of fear. He knows to be afraid of a madman for he, himself, is mad. He lifts his Magnum but MIGUEL is faster with his RIFLE. In the next instant the muzzle is aiming directly at RHODES' stomach.
MIGUEL "Kill the priest."
MIGUEL pulls the trigger and THE WEAPON CLICKS SHARPLY... it's empty.
THE CAPTAIN'S smile slowly returns. He holsters his Magnum and pushes the "ATTACK" BUTTON on his BELT-UNIT.
THE RED COATS advance, their PISTOLS RELOADED. THEY FIRE, stiff-armed and fumble-fingered, at MIGUEL. He sees them moving toward him. THE FIRST FEW BULLETS MISS. Something in his mind clicks and he recognizes the creatures for what they are... walking dead.
146 EXT. THE CLEARING - DAY
A BULLET HITS MIGUEL IN HIS STUMP and reality gets even clearer. He starts to scream.
Then the screenplay takes a drastic shift from the final film. It ends up closer to the much later Land of the Dead, where there is an underground bunker of scientists experimenting on zombies, whilst up above in a "Stalag" or camp all of the surviving civilians have been gathered up and regularly terrorised by the soldiers with threats of being thrown to the zombies infesting the rest of the island to keep them in their place. There are lots more people of all types (scientists, soldiers and civilians) in this screenplay than the tiny handful in the final film of Day of the Dead and they're used very much for social satire like Land's have and have-not social groups. The civilian stalag is full of bacchanalian cavorting of people trying to lose themselves in sex and drink to avoid thinking of the threat beyond the gates, and even inside the underground bunker itself things aren't much better with the few representatives of the old order gathering people for orgies and suchlike. Various groups start making plans to escape and this all leads to the inevitable collapse of the tenuous balance of power.
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323 INT. THE GYMNASIUM - NIGHT
A WOMAN'S FACE IS FULL SCREEN. She is screamingly insanely. THE ZOMBIES have invaded. They're clawing at THE FAT-CAT COUNCILORS, MAULING THEIR WOMEN. GASPARILLA AND TWO OTHER MEN are rolling around crazily, bumping into EXERCISE MACHINES, knocking over WINE BOTTLES AND TABLES FULL OF HORS D'OEUVRES. THE VEST, the single vest they are fighting over, rips apart into two pieces, its ORANGE CIRCLE severed into two halves.
GASPARILLA backs away across the floor, his blubber bouncing. He has a tattered piece of the vest clutched in his hands. He tries to hold it up and spread it out on his chest, but it's too late... and THE ZOMBIES are too hungry, much too hungry.
ALL OVER THE ROOM, THE ZOMBIES STRIKE!
MONTAGE: This is it, gore fans. The gross finale. The intestine-tugger. GASPARILLA AND HIS COURT GET TORN TO SHREDS AS THE ZOMBIES GET THEIR LONG-AWAITED SUPPER. THE CREATURES FEAST AMONG THE PILLOWS, looking like Romans at an orgy. MUSIC still plays over the gymnasium speaker system... rockabilly in a gleeful tempo.
The screenplay is a very interesting look at what could have been (wasn't there also once a mooted "War for the Planet of the Dead" sequel, which would have involved battling armies of human controlled zombies? I guess that would have required a Lord of the Rings-style budget to even get close to being realised). However the final film version of Day of the Dead that we actually got, though smaller in scale, is just as good and unique in its own way (for example the film really glories more in Rhode's insane rantings, letting Joe Pilato go overboard. Rhodes also gets a better death in the film: "Choke on 'em!". Also Bub and Dr Logan never meet in this screenplay, while they have a surprisingly touching relationship in the film. And the narrowed down cast works really well in the film to add to that sense of claustrophobia), so I can't say that it was entirely a negative thing that the larger scaled screenplay never got made. But for fans, this screenplay feels like an essential read. There are copies of it out on the internet but they seem drastically cut down from the much longer version that appears as a DVD-ROM feature on Anchor Bay's Day of the Dead DVD.
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338 EXT. ANOTHER ISLAND (WIDE EST.) - MORNING
Gorgeous, a paradise. BIRDSONG fills the air.
339 EXT. A RIVER ON THE ISLAND - MORNING
THE REFUGEES ARE ALL GATHERED. THE CHILDREN walk, one by one, through the shallow water as JOHN baptizes them. SARAH, MARY AND THE NURSE carry the infants. When THE INFANT IN SARAH'S ARMS has been touched by JOHN, SARAH doesn't move. She looks up into the big man's warm eyes.
SARAH: Me too... please.
JOHN gently cups a handful of river water and pours it onto the woman's forehead.
THE OTHER ADULTS, led by LUKEY, file into the river, all lining up before the baptist, waiting for their turns to be blessed into this tiny new society.
340 EXT. A BEACH ON THE ISLAND - MORNING
THE CORPSES OF TRICKS AND THE MAPMAKER lie, covered, in the sand. THE REFUGEES are gathered again, heads bowed, while JOHN speaks.
JOHN: Satan... ain't sent these men back. Not yet, anyway... so we all hopin' that maybe they is up there with you, Lord. These might be the first decent souls that we been able ta offer ya in quite a few years. That's a fact. We just gonna... gonna pray, Lord. We gonna pray that... what seems ta be goin' on here... is really happenin'. Anyway... I'm gonna take a chance and speak these words that I ain't spoke for a long while... May they... rest in peace.
THE OTHERS: Amen.
341 EXT. THE BEACH - NIGHT
THE TWO CORPSES lie in the MOONLIGHT. NIGHT CRITTERS SCREECH AND BURBLE back in the jungle behind the sand. It's an eerie scene.
SARAH is sitting up, her RIFLE ready in her lap, guarding the corpses. JOHN steps up behind her and she startles.
JOHN: Just me. I'll take the next shift.
SARAH: How long do we watch them?
JOHN: Forever, darlin'. Forever. 'Til they turn ta dust an' blow away on the wind.
342 EXT. THE BEACH - NIGHT
THE TWO BODIES lie rigid, stiff, under the KHAKI ARMY BLANKETS that rise and fall, rise and fall with the Gulf breezes.
Suddenly, A LOUD MUSIC CHORD! A SUDDEN MOVEMENT! It's the movement of RED LETTERS that SPIN UP OFF THE CORPSES AND SETTLE BEFORE OUR EYES. The letters read: THE END (I PROMISE).