My dearest readers, I can only hope that each and every one of you, at some point or another, have found yourselves adrift in the myriad of possibilities that new love offers. These first tremors of romance lead to all manner of expression and though some of them can make one “look the fool,” it is the kind of episode that a happy couple can reflect on years later, the initial breach of composure crystalizing into warm sentiment. Why, I remember when I first began to pursue my sweet Penny Dee, the lengths I would go to make an impression on her were most considerable. She still gently chides me for the schoolboy enthusiasm I used to exhibit, tossing small pebbles and twigs at her window late at night to call attention to the elaborate taxidermy tableaus I would arrange beneath her bedroom window (*). 

Max (Johnathon Schaech) is a similarly infatuated individual and he makes no secret of his feelings for medical student Zoe Parker (Sophie Skelton). Max expresses his affections as any lovelorn fellow might, ensuring that he and his beloved are regularly forced into uncomfortably close confines and carving her name rather skillfully into his arm. Sadly, these gestures do little to sway Zoe’s feelings in Max’s favor and he does eventually press his case a little too forcefully, mounting her unwilling form and insisting that she belongs to him. This unfortunate display of passion is interrupted by a zombie outbreak and while Zoe manages to remain physically unscathed, Max is the first to fall victim to a carnivorous corpse.

But Max is more than just a hopeless romantic -- he is also a medical anomaly whose body produces 100 times the normal amount of antibodies. His uncommon constitution allows him to partially stave off the zombie infection and he becomes something of a zombie-human hybrid. This new condition does little to fetter Max’s amorous enthusiasm and when a medical supply run reunites him with his beloved Zoe years later, the incorrigible rascal finds his way to the base where she has been dilligently studying the zombie virus. Here he makes himself indispensable as a half dead research subject, one who Zoe becomes convinced holds the key to a vaccine.

Max’s undying affections for Zoe and his general contempt for all non-Zoe humans make him a less pleasant tenant than Bub, the eager-to-please stiff who saluted his way into the hearts of audience members 30 odd years ago. George A. Romero’s original Day of the Dead forced us to reconcile the pure monstrosity attributed to the zombie horde with Bub’s endearing and profoundly humane habits. Day of the Dead: Bloodline swings hard in the other direction with its own version of the captive cadaver, making a person who was admittedly a little indecorous in life even more unpleasant in semi-death.

This is obviously the “bold reimagining” that the film’s marketing touts, the first such revision of Romero’s original since Steve Miner boldly reimagined it ten years ago. And it does indeed seem bold, in the first official franchise outing since Romero’s passing, to completely discard the message of the original by making both the humans and zombies equally unsympathetic. Though I like to fancy myself perfectly objective in my journalistic endeavors, I confess that the daring of director Hèctor Hernández Vicens did occasionally clash with my nostalgic recollection of the first Day of the Dead. But this is the sort of audacity necessary to usher a great artist’s vision into a new era. Though the transition may be a little uncomfortable, it is a necessity if we are to allow the classics room for contemporary adaptation.

Day of the Dead: Bloodline runs 90 minutes and is rated R for bloody violence, gore, language, brief sexuality and nudity.

(*) The local rabbit population declined considerably due to P.G.’s courtship style - Penny Dee, Ed.