Just saw this again last week and have been mulling it over.
I first saw it when I was what, 14? And I don’t remember liking it as much, even though it has a permanent place in my fond childhood memories.
I’ll have to agree with some of the hardcore and say that it was a better movie than the remake, with a few exceptions.
The zombies were a joke. What kind of pathetic SWAT team has trouble killing any arbitrary amount of those things unless they happen to run out of ammo, and even then, give them a pointy stick. They were totally unbelievable for a “take over the world” threat level.
Why was the world so fucked when judging by the earlier shots (rednecks zombie hunting, for one) - they had it well in hand?
Why can the zombies magically bite through any flesh-covering material as if they had pneumatic jaws but seem to have no other real strength?
Why did the bikers do a whole weird 3 stooges thing?
Why would you trade a Colt Commando (to a zombie) for some crappy (non-scoped) hunting rifle? It would have been so easy just to take that rifle away from him.
Anyway, combine that movie with the fast zombies and the better fx/etc of the remake, and we have an all time classic. As it was, I felt that both were just middling, and I got a better rush out of the remake.