Review of Land of the Dead (2005) by Christopher S — 17 Nov 2009

The legacy of undead ?zombie? films that multiply from the corpse of Dawn of the Dead reminds me of the countless slasher movies that spawned from Hitchcock?s 1960 masterpiece Psycho. Dawn of the Dead was a great movie, and I look on it with only the fondest of memories. Unfortunately so do many lazy filmmakers who see it as an opportunity to make a quick flick containing action, horror and suspense. These scavenger movies live off something better, but they miss the point of the original. Were the two original Romero ?dead? films, Night of the Living Dead and the follow up Dawn of the Dead, horror fests where the stronger the guts and the gore the better? Yes. But they were also social satire, especially the second. Romero directs zombie movies not only as end-of-days survival movies, but as a stab at the consumer industry. His talent as a director is able to make us empathise with a horde of the undead rather than a cluster of survivors in Land of the Dead and he has the guts to not only make another zombie flick, but to give the genre a fresh twist that will upset some die hard fans but keep those seeking something different baying for more.

Land of the Dead is set in and around a rebuilt metropolis, built to keep out the undead and the people in. The lower classes live in the slums, watching puppetry shows, visiting market stalls, finding and selling illegal contraband and attending illegal zombie-vs.-human fist fights. It is at one of these games that our heroes Riley Denbo (Simon Baker) and Charlie (Robert Joy) meets the hot, gun-toting stripper babe, Slack (Asia Argento ? who I recently saw in Marie Antoinette). Together they are hired by the owner of the prestigious district Fiddler?s Green, Paul Kaufman (another cult legend, Dennis Hopper). Kaufman angered smuggler Cholo (John Leguizamo), who then stole the great mother of zombie killing vehicles, Dead Reckoning, and is threatening to unleash the vehicles? huge arsenal of weapons on the city. Riley, Charlie and Slack?s mission is to stop Cholo and save the day, returning Dead Reckoning to Kaufman and living in serenity.

But for some reason these guys don?t like the safety and security of the city, and do their own thing to keep us interested.

Of course, I?ve seen countless variations of human characters in an endless list of zombie movies and, therefore, am mostly bored or unimpressed by any of these character?s personalities or back-stories (even though their acting is solid and convincing). The zombies, however, are different; they are smart and break the archetypical machine gun fodder that zombie movie fans cling to so dearly. We closely follow a group of zombies, led by the one zombie with a shine of intelligence, ?Big Daddy? who victoriously leads and demonstrates to the other zombies the usefulness of tools, an obscure but brilliant 2001: A Space Odyssey reference. They are quickly evolving and invading the city. George A. Romero refreshes his genre and daringly invests some invention, which my fellow critics and I have been crying about for years.

So if Night of the Living Dead was a haunting play on our fears, and Dawn of the Dead was a sucker punch to the consumer industry, I guess Land of the Dead is a jab at poverty, hierarchy and leadership, with the undead representing either the third world or the rebellious lower class who got the short straw in life, and the people of the city of Fiddler?s Green representing the western world ? posh and selfish, completely unaware of the destruction, starvation and war going on outside their perfect little world. Romero is clever like that.

Note: Dead Reckoning apparently was George Romero?s original name for the film, which I?m glad wasn?t used, as the vehicle is merely a MacGuffin whereas Land of the Dead reassures the continuity of the series.

Note 2: Also, there are scenes of extreme violence. Some too nasty to describe - it has more Gore in it than An Inconvenient Truth. It will make you squiem.