In The Many Days of Day of the Dead, George A. Romero explained that he decided to take the executive producer up on the offer and trim down the script and create the claustrophobic and more dialogue-heavy theatrical version.
Like George A. Romero’s previous zombie movies, Day of the Dead was full of grotesque zombies, visceral gore, and language that would make just about anyone blush, even the undead.
When Day of the Dead opened in theaters in October 1985, it was released unrated, meaning no one under the age of 17 would be allowed to watch the movie, even with parental supervision.
In order for Romero to keep as much of his original vision for the film (more on that later), he was forced to compromise with executive producer Salah M. Hassanein in that he could keep the film unrated, but only if he agreed to cut the budget in half, from $7 million to $3.5 million.