Day of the Dead TV Series (2021–) Review

 

As a small town begins to be overrun with zombies a group of people must face the horror head-on.

 One of the directors of the excellent The Void (2016) Steven Kostanski, delivers a reimagining of modern horror classic Day of the Dead (1985) with lacklustre results. Based on the opening episode, as a fresh-faced cast come face to face with the dead in a flashback, it glaringly is on a budget, which wouldn’t be a problem, or fall short of expectations if it wasn’t being sold as Day of the Dead. 

 The make-up effects and music are surprisingly effective. The cast do a fine job and appear to be having fun, Keenan Tracey, Daniel Doheny, and Natalie Malaika are notable. It appears to utilise George A. Romero’s character names, akin to Day of the Dead (2008) but the tone is reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006) and Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation (2012), particularly the mortuary setups, with a touch of Return of the Living Dead Part II and Zombie Night (2013). 

 Greddy town officials and workers are straight out of Forest Of The Dead (2007). Shoehorning in every trope in the genre, writers Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas offer a new slant with the dead body chained in a cavern but the production appears to be SYFY cynical attempt to cash in on a classic. Plodding, familiar and falling short as both a homage and a gimmick. There are debatably better or certainly enough TV zombie series of varying degrees of quality already out there. Kostanski can and has delivered imaginative and resourceful work; but this sadly and surprisingly isn’t one of them.  

As a low budget zombie TV series, it is adequate, but as a series connected to Romero’s work, it’s extraordinarily empty.