jlthornb51 This is a motion picture that demands to be seen. Intense, horrifying film that is a significant addition to the zombie genre. Inspired direction coupled with an imaginative script make for an often uneven but always terrifying motion picture experience. The make-up is some of the most creative ever done in cinema and is a vital element in some of the brilliant scenes both shock and entrance the audience. The performances are incredibly powerful and uniformly excellent as a cast of talented actors give everything they have to the overall success of what is essentially an ensemble effort. A relatively substantial budget is certainly reflected in the production values and special effects which will leave most viewers speechless. While this film is sometimes not accepted as an authentic entry in the Day of the Dead series, it is an admired stand alone film that offers a powerful story that is both unique and very well told.

westerlund-147-949472 This is supposed to be a sequel to George Romeros Day of the Dead, which in turn was the second sequel to the classic Night of the Living Dead. I guess that would make it Night of the living dead 4? Or Dawn of the Dead 3? It is the only entry to the living dead series with a numeral in the title, which makes it pretty confusing. You might think that it would have some special relationship to Day of the Dead, but apparently it is supposed to be a prequel to the entire franchise, telling the story of how it all began. But why connect the title to Day of the dead of all movies? Even more, Romero doesn't seem to have been involved in any way. After watching though, I can say that it does not only have nothing to do with Day of the Dead, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the franchise at all.To describe the plot is difficult, because there isn't so much of it. It starts off at a hospital of some sorts, where the virus breaks out for what I guess is the first time. Apparently it came from some sort of a vial that belonged to a Russian bloke. The military shows up to take care of the situation, but one of the vials falls into the brush and disappears. Five years later, it is discovered by a group of patients of a mental institution and their doctor. Of course it gets loose again and starts too zombify everyone, and the quest for survival is on.This movie suffers from many things. The acting isn't great, and the way the characters interacts with each other doesn't feel natural or engaging. The characters themselves are fairly uninteresting, mostly because of the bad acting and because the script does not do a good job of presenting and developing them. The biggest problem however is the story, or what is supposed to pass for a story. Really, I have no idea what this movie was about! The point of the movie was supposedly to explain how the whole thing started, but I know nothing more after watching it than I did before. Why do we even need an explanation anyway? There is no point in explaining where the zombies came from. The Living dead movies have never been about "why?", but rather it has been about how we deal with it, what happens to us people when we face such extreme conditions. The series have also always been full of social commentaries, but here doesn't seem to be anything similar to what we saw in Night or Dawn, at least none that I could see. Were we supposed to worry about the characters losing their humanity due to the release of the virus? Propably, too bad I didn't care. It just becomes a bland mess of characters and insinuations we don't care about. Does it at least have some gory zombie action? Well... some, but it never becomes as chilling as in Night, as over the top and messy as in Dawn or as intense and nail-biting like in Day. It just comes and goes, and when it's over it's hard to even care. The zombies behavior is also weird and inconsistent with the rest of the series. In this movie, the zombies are still conscious of their personalities, and they talk too. Yes, talking, thinking zombies. Have these guys ever seen a zombie movie before? Also, this movie seems to insist that it is the virus that makes the corpses look all bloody, chewed up and decomposed. I thought it was because they, you know, used to be dead and chewed upon before they turned into zombies! It's bad enough when the story doesn't connect with the rest of the series, it doesn't even look or behave like a Romero-movie. It just makes me wonder why they wanted to make a sequel to Day of the Dead if they were not even going work within the same universe. All in all, this movie is pretty pointless.

chuckm76 This movies IMDb rating doesn't do it any justice at all, I was honestly expecting one of those shot on hand-held digicam, straight to DVD movies that there are so many of these days but this is so much more. This film is well shot, well acted, well directed and most of all has a completely original plot twist. OK lets get the obvious question out of the way, why is it called Day Of The Dead 2? I really don't know, it doesn't have anything in common with Romero's films other than zombies and it's certainly not a sequel. Very strange. After a great start in which the story builds it then slows down a lot, the early-middle part of the movie moves at a zombie walking pace. It sadly does affect the film at this point but it's all very watchable and the acting and storyline keeps interest levels up. I'm not going to spoil the plot twist but please just stick with it, I had thought that the best of this movie was in the opening sequence but I'm so glad that I stayed the course. The last act picks up the pace again and there are some delightful treats for zombie fans, fantastic make-up and most of all convincing, old skool slow moving zombies. Why can't Hollywood remakes stick to these rules!? I really wasn't expecting this at all, I was fully ready to take this film apart but it's made with a real sense of fun and good ideas. If the middle was more entertaining then I could easily give a higher rating, what it does do though is make the end of the movie worth waiting for. It gave me a feel of the 70's Spanish/Italian zombie movies in as far as pacing and plot, but this is way better than most of them. I can only think that the lowly rating for this film is from Romero fan boys who take offence at the use of the name. I too don't feel they needed to or should've been able to use the name but please look past that and if you're a zombie fan you will enjoy this.A superb cheap thrill with no social commentary, just a sense of fun and a reason to get some great zombies on-screen. What more do you want!!??

raypdaley182 The reason this is an "Of The Dead" movie is because Taurus (the company who made) owned the rights to the name Day Of The Dead and were allowed to use it however they wished, this was nothing to do with George Romero at all. The film is very gory, but decidedly low budget looking.Starting out in 1968, Ravenside Military Installation in Pennslyvania (according to the fairly helpful graphic but the sign above the main door is more helpful & reads Ravenside Military Hospital) in the middle of some sort of emergency from the alarms and frantic running around. We get a warning (translated from Russian, clearly a soldier who'd defected to return something the Russians had stolen) and in the chaos someone steals what had been returned. We see some of the cheapest looking CGI jeeps and helicopters I've ever encountered and we see exactly what kind of response the Military have sent, the type that results in deadly force with no questions asked. Seemingly their problem is easily solved and the zombies outside obviously went to the Romero School of Acting judging by their loping gait.Our thief hears the military policy over their radios (By the way, the order "Shoot to kill" is NEVER issued, when you open fire you only ever do it for 1 reason) and there are 2 goofs (the "dead" nurse on the ground who blinks & the sniper upstairs who needs 2 shots to kill someone) as our thief finally succumbs to the disease and is killed, losing his ill gotten booty. Flash forward (the graphic gets around dating the movie exactly by reading "Five Days Ago") and we meet a group of men, one of whom discovers the long dead thiefs booty in what is now Ravenside Memorial Hospital. Funnily enough they live in the Romero Ward and its fairly clear this is some sort of Mental Institution.We gradually start to find out who are staff and who are patients (its not immediately obvious before they enter the hospital) and get a rough idea of what kind group dynamic they have and what kind of relationships exist. The disease is unleashed again and the 1st signs start to manifest after the patients are returned to their beds and rooms. Dr Donwynn researches on the internet and the patients seemingly start to hallucinate. The following day (4 days ago) and more signs of infection start to manifest in the form of extremely low budget make-up effects (using PVA glue to simulate peeling skin) and we discover there is some sort of connection between all of the infected as they all experience the same feeling as Emma in her restraints. Their symptoms worsen (however none of them seem to question the fact their vomiting up blood & bile? I know their supposed to be mental patients but most of them seemed quite lucid before getting infected) and chaos seems to be ensuing at the hospital and getting worse rapidly.When Donwynn is asked where they got sick and Dr Heller (the guy in charge) calls it "the DeLuca ravine" its extremely clear Heller knows more than he is letting on about the past of Ravenside. Isaac (one of the patients) discovers he no longer bleeds (so he is already dead then) as Heller considers contacting the military but changes his mind and imposes a quarantine, issues weapons and authorises the use of deadly force. His final order of "aim for the head" proves he knows more than he is telling anyone else and Donwynn finds out exactly what was in the vial and what it does. It appears Donwynn has a connection with all the infected and Marshall the nurse who attacked Emma is shown to be more infected than any of those who were exposed to the vial. A guard is shot & killed and the infected male patients argue as Heller shows us how bad Marshall looks.The following day (3 days ago) and after a minor scuffle one of the patients gets hold of a gun and it is pretty weird that they are letting the obviously infected Donwynn interact with uninfected staff & patients. Marshall breaks loose and eats Heller as Emma is released & Isaac is shot & Marshall gives us the 1st scare of the movie which is awesome even if it is totally expected. Donwynns informant Jerry confirms the infected are dead and tells us about the origin of the vials and we get to see what caused the original outbreak from the start of the movie. There's the super goof of the guard losing the magazine from his pistol as he fires at Marshall and as the cure is about to be revealed the patients fall into a feeding frenzy on Jerry.The following day (2 days ago) Heller is now undead, Donwynn discovers how much Heller knew and patients Boris, Sam & Jackie appear to have physically changed after eating Jerry. The cure is seemingly destroyed by Vicky, a junkie looking for a fix and Emma has gone from just pregnant to full term in 3 days as Isaac finds his own solution to being undead. The following day (yesterday) and the news reports the dead walking and attacking the living in a very open and extremely weak non-ending. I say non-ending as there is no real conclusion, no idea of what happened to Emma and her pregnancy. I assume this was left open to further explore the franchise at a later date.