Nightmares? That's George Romero's and Tom Savini's specialty.
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- The nightmare sequence, ending with a thousand zombie hands from a wall grabbing for Sarah.
- There's one scene where Pvt. Torrez is ripped to pieces. His head is actually pulled off his torso screaming all the while, but as his vocal cords are stretched to the breaking point, his voice gets higher and higher. And his head is still alive even after it's ripped off. Also, both his eyes have been gouged out by zombies digging their fingers in for a better grip.
- Rickles is freaking out as he's being surrounded, overwhelmed, and pinned down, laughing like a hyena before transitioning into screaming, then combining the two in sheer hysterics as the zombies tear his head open (also with some Eye Scream).
- And Big Bad Captain Rhodes himself? Actual pig intestines were used for filming his disembowelment. And to make things worse, the refrigerator the intestines were put in was unplugged ("Supposedly by accident." Said Joseph Pilato with an eyeroll) over a weekend, causing the intestines to rot. One can only imagine the smell.Capt. Rhodes: CHOKE ON 'EM! CHOOOOKE ON 'EEEEM!
- Early on during the ravaged town montage when the pile of hundreds if not thousands of dollars is sitting on the street undisturbed, along with the skeleton, which really hammers in the nail of society's collapse.
- The very first zombie we see in the movie. It looks like it's missing most, if not all of its lower jaw. Does a good job of setting the tone for the entire film.
- Zombie(s) with guns. And they won't kill you with the guns, just shoot you until you collapse and leave you to be eaten alive.
- While, in context, said zombie leaving a guy to be killed is actually something to cheer for, the first scene of Bub opening fire has its shock value. A zombie limps around the corner, sees a human... and raises a Colt .45.
- Even the scene where Logan gives Bub an unloaded gun to use is scary, this is a zombie, the last few items he "played" with used in a very infantile manner, but when he get the gun, he uses it completely professionally, even holding it completely steady with both hands, and pulls the trigger.
- Dr. Logan's experiments on Major Cooper's body, turning him into a zombie with the head completely removed but an intact brain and spinal cord, with just enough neck and skull to keep them from falling apart.
- He's also taken one of the soldiers' corpses after they've been accidently shot to death (but no headshot) and removed the head, letting it mindlessly gnaw on air.
- During the opening, our heroes visit Fort Myers, a city in Southwest Florida that's swarming with zombies to the point that their collective moans manage to be audible over a helicopter engine.
- The scene where Captain Rhodes threatens to have Sarah killed if she doesn't sit back in her chair in the meeting hall, then emphasizes his point by forcing Steel at gunpoint to shoot her if she refuses Rhodes' order. The zombies are dangerous and frightening by themselves, but this scene once more illustrates that humans can be just as dangerous to each other, if not more so. Also, when Rhodes starts with his threats, William is shown putting his hand over his gun on the table, and then right before Sarah relents, John likewise reaches for his sidearm, clearly intending to protect Sarah should things come to a head. If she had not relented and sat down, a gun battle would have ensued right then and there, with who knows how many dead and wounded as a result.
- While the previous movies gave the zombies rather generic clothing, here they're seen dressed in a wider variety of colorful outfits - there's a woman in a marching band uniform, a man in a tuxedo, a ballerina, even a clown. It accentuates the Was Once a Man aspect of the creatures in a very unsettling way. Including the very visibly pregnant woman in the blue dress at the very beginning, seen among the hoard of the dead in the city.
- Several of the zombies in the horde overrunning the facility at the end are dressed in combat uniforms, showing that they were soldiers or national guardsmen before their zombification. This has all sorts of fridge horror implications as to the fate that befell their units, as well as the fact that there was no one around to make sure that their corpses wouldn't reanimate.
