Land of the Dead: my review
In 1968, a young director named George Romero set out with a cast of Pittsburgh unknowns to make a low-budget horror film. Borrowing liberally from Richard Matheson’s classic novella “I am Legend”, he crafted a simple story of a disparate group cornered in a farmhouse by an ever-growing army of re-animated corpses hungry for warm flesh. The result, Night of the Living Dead, broke all the established conventions: an African-American hero, a bleak ending, zero romantic interests, sly social commentary, and unflinching scenes of human cannibalism.
Night was a smash hit, encouraging Romero to extend his tale into a fullblown trilogy. Dawn of the Dead upped the ante in 1979 with Technicolor, shopping mall, and a running time of 2 1/2 hours. 1985’s Day of the Dead chronicled the final collapse of civilized society as the undead… showing small glimmers of intellect… claimed their crown as the dominant species.
Romero has often lamented that the scope of Day fell far short of his intended vision, and the recent surge of zombie movies has given him a second chance to realize it in Land of the Dead. The establishing scene is of Romero’s America finally reduced to a barren wasteland. The ghost towns are scoured by a salvage team led by Riley (Simon Baker) with his assistants Cholo (John Leguizamo) and Charlie (Robert Joy). Their assignment is to loot vital supplies for Fiddler’s Green, a walled city under the grip of Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), its Donald Trump-ish ruler. Riley’s looters navigate the countryside using an ingeniously-designed vehicle called “Dead Reckoning,” best described as a Greyhound-sized Sherman tank.
As with any Dead film, there’s signs of tensions amongst the survivors at the outset. Revolution is brewing between the ghetto commoners and the monied class inhabiting the luxurious skyscraper at the city’s center. The idealistic Riley dreams of life beyond the false security of Fiddler’s Green, while Cholo schemes to bribe his way into the stratified society established by Kaufman. When Cholo’s efforts are brutally rebuffed, he hijacks Dead Reckoning, threatening to level Fiddler’s Green unless Kaufman pays him a hefty ransom. Meanwhile, the zombie hordes milling outside the city walls are evolving into an angry mob as intelligent as they are ravenous. Clearly, it’s only a matter of time until dinner is served… and eventually it is, in appropriately gruesome detail.
Any zombie film is only as enjoyable as its special effects, and Romero’s dead have never looked better (or worse, depending on your point of view). Using a combination of old-fashioned latex, CGI, and animatronics, Greg Nicotero’s makeup crew have created perhaps the most repulsive legion of undead imaginable. Regardless, Romero’s sympathies still tend toward his monsters, whose external ugliness and bad table manners pale in comparison to the display put on by his immoral human characters.
For this fourth venture, Romero has assembled a fine cast of genre professionals, all of whom acquit themselves nicely. Hopper is remarkably restrained as the Machiavellian head honcho; there’s clearly a flicker of George Bush in his beady eyes, and his droll quips (”We don’t negotiate with terrorists!”) inspires much of Land’s humor. Asia Argento (daughter of Italian horror maestro Dario) showcases as a kick-ass prostitute who allies herself with the protagonists. Finally, there’s a thoughtful “Mice-and-Men” kinship developed between Baker and Joy (as Riley’s handicapped but unflinchingly loyal sidekick)
Land is weak in a few areas, and this is mainly due to the rushed shooting schedule. If society has collapsed, how can American currency hold any value amongst these characters? Fiddler’s Green is seemingly run by electricity… indeed, a high-voltage fence keeps the flesheaters out… but how is this electricity generated in the first place? Without a doubt, Romero has created a fascinating alternate universe, but the fleeting glimpses we’re offered raise far more questions than answers. It would have been nice to see it examined more closely.
Despite such loose ends, Land of the Dead is one of the more engaging horror films to come down the pike in recent years, and makes a fine bookend to Romero’s original trilogy. Sandwiched inbetween all the gunplay and gore is a barrage of bitchslaps at class warfare, post-9/11 anxiety, and corporate malfeasance. Surprisingly, room is made at the end for yet another sequel , and perhaps Land deserves one. At the risk of bad pun, Romero has proven that his Dead franchise still has plenty of life left in it.
