Day/Dead - Sara

 

I was going to try and wait until Saturday afternoon to write about a certain scene in Day of the Dead (1985) but if needbe I will polish this if it comes off a turd. It is a companion piece of sorts to my other dropped post late last night. Cardille seems to have given a performance with mixed response from those who watched the film but I think her key scene that stands out among the entirety of her work and that is when her Sara is just at the breaking point. I think it's essentially a panic attack. Sara moves her wounded lover, Miguel, to John and McDermott's trailer after his arm is bitten by a zombie during a mishap involving a catch and accidental release where the soldiers are responsible for hooking and harnessing the walking dead for Dr Logan's experiments in controlling them so they will behave and stop attacking and eating humans. Using a machete to pry away the infected arm and a lit torch to cauterize the wound, that alone is traumatizing enough much less Captain Rhodes, Rickles, and Steel pointing guns at them while John and McDermott do so likewise. The standoff where [somewhat] cooler heads prevail, Sara clearly has mentally and emotionally had enough. She briefly keeps Miguel safe but needing to return to get morphine will be a challenge. But as Rhodes and his men reluctantly leave, Sara is rattled. She's frozen and shaking but John recognizes Sara needs a shoulder to cry on. It's a wrenching scene. Not long prior to this Rhodes threatened to have Steel shoot her if Sara didn't sit down. So already Sara had been warned that Rhodes is capable of killing anyone who sets him off. So Cardille throughout really gets the point across that she's dealt with potential rape, leering, ridicule, abrasive personalities, claustrophobic confines, those around her showing signs of mental deterioration, her own stress and impending doom not just be the zombies outside but by the soldiers assigned to help them in the government mine lab.