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The Day, directed by Douglas Aarniokoski, opens with a sequential video montage showcasing the world devoid of life. The ambiance is narrated by the empty roads, which are full of debris, fire-stricken forests, and creeks, which are polluted and muddy. The combination of camera movements along with the sound gives the piece a new feel that is both refreshing and extreme. However, the distant sound of silence is able to instill the essence of danger. The feeling of death lurking over one’s existence is overbearing and omnipresent. From the film, we see five roughneck heroes who carry heavy-duty machetes, shotguns, and knives and make their way to enemies. The way they attack their foes gives a hint to the audience that they have a dark objective in mind.
Aarniokoski first presents a group dynamic with numbed communication, which hints on characters and relationships rather adequately Rick (Dominic Monaghan), the familiar figure of a leader, is unrestrained, as well as surviving at all costs, Adam (Shawn Ashmore), his moody sibling, Henson (Cory Hardrict), their afflicted best friend Shannon (Shannyn Sossamon), Rick’s high-tempered girlfriend; and Mary (Ashley Bell), their newly added enigmatical colleague. We lack effective access to self-explanatory details behind each’s motivations, as well as the sociopolitical background of the worldwide catastrophe, and, in this case, we are left to imagine the details based on fragments of incomprehensible speech. Even more surprising is the lack of an audience surrogate, or the ‘everyman’ as documents call them, often used in horror films to offset the insensitivity of the film. Their absence here indicates that, in this particular world, kia, innocence is dead.
The Day shifts from a more personal shadow character study to one that looks at an all-out siege when the group finds a lonely farmhouse and is assaulted by sadistic cannibals. Indeed, Aarniokoski has borrowed from Night of the Living Dead, and so too, The Road Warrior can be felt in his use of old clothes, prop weapons, and the bone-crunching action choreography. Nevertheless, the sense of mood and tension that the film establishes, especially through the deeply conflicted character of Mary, manages to feel distinctly his. Even within this pseudo-striking pose, she is deadly calm and resolute, and Bell achieves the remarkable. The concealment of her active identity crisis, proportioned to the severity of the external violence, serves as a microcosm of the war-stricken world. Mary serves to her fellows both the hostile passion and the indomitable zeal of my fellow comrades, more particularly the desire to be free of the insatiable hunger she was exposed to.
You could call it an action film, but of the horrible kind. The day might be going off the rails in the final stretch. The brutal murder accompanied with a digital arterial spray in the ending is an example of ethical punishment and simply serves as an easy solution. Notably, Aarniokoski never leaves anything to be determined. He styles an unfortunate feeling of control in his characters. All these gaps are reasoned with a justice too black and white. And to make things worse, The Day is tied so neatly. It’s a film that is at its core, drenched in blood and full of grit.
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