Day of the Dead (1985) Class Trailer Review

Day of the Dead (1985)

Mark after viewing: 5/10

What happened in the trailer?

There is a zombie apocalypse and survivors are hiding in an underground bunker. The scientists there are trying to make zombies good again which is seen as there is one good zombie. The zombies then infiltrate the bunker and people are fighting to survive. Throughout the trailer a zombie in the theatre is watching the film which scares the other people watching.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?

The trailer shows the storyline of the film really well with the fact that there is a good zombie amongst the bad ones. Even though it introduces the narrative it is still mysterious as it doesn’t reveal too much. It links to “Day of the dead” in the title of the trailer but relates back to “Night of the living dead” and “Dawn of the dead” in the footage throughout. The make-up for the zombies is also done reasonably well making it look more realistic as a zombie film.

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful, and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?

Most of us hated the comedy zombie watching the film as it makes the film look rubbish compared to how good it actually is. It is false advertising as it sells comedy to the audience when the film is actually really nasty. It doesn’t show any gore either which again isn’t like the film as there are some really good effects in it. It is too slow and didn’t have a fast ending to build the tension to keep the audiences’ attention. The music is like that of an ice-cream van so it isn’t scary enough to use on a horror trailer of this sort. The voiceover is also annoying which would put horror fans off this film. 

What was the trailer’s average score in class? Why did it receive that mark?

The average score in the class was 4.5/10. This is because the voiceovers are cheesy and it doesn’t live up to the true nature of the film by portraying it as a comedy horror instead of the full on horror it really is.