Romero did not fare too well with his last film, ‘Bruiser’ (2000), a little shown and little heard of movie with a faceless character rebelling against those that made him ‘invisible’. Now with a major studio behind him, it’s time for his unDead magnum opus – ‘Land of the Dead’ . But that’s were we come into our first problem folks, Romero’s forth zombie movie looks at his previously set up rules and changes them for the price of a twist and a social comment and perhaps alienating some of his most ardent fans. To have zombies in a movie, you are looking into flights of fancy, and that is fine and accepted, you set up your rules and enjoy the play and ensuing carnage… but now after thirty plus years with the walking dead moaning and groaning, acting on faded memories and residue instinct while rotting away, we now have zombies ‘evolving’ ?
Ok, if you can take the last part as mere plot development then you are in for a great ride, but if you are like myself, you will find this just too difficult to ignore or put down to being a ‘novel’ twist to the tale.
So on with the show, this is the best looking zombie flick around and the crew do wonders with the effects, both visual and make-up, the camerawork (thanks to Miroslaw Baszak) and set design. This time they have created a completely new but familiar world for the dead to walk. As an obvious social comment Romero has the high and mighty looking out over Fiddler’s Green, a rich and luxurious high-rise for the elite with shanty type settlements at its foundations for the common survivor. The river protects three sides and an electric fence keeps the other safe from harms way. This sanctuary has all the misfits of society making ends meet, as long as they serve a purpose for the hallowed above.
From time to time raiding parties must venture into the desolate surrounding areas to scrounge for food and supplies, armed to the teeth, riding on bikes and in armoured vehicles this army goes on its missions to maintain the wealthys’ idea that the world has not changed. These marauders know the world has indeed changed and go about their duties facing the undead on frequent occasions, sometimes to deadly results.Riley (Simon Baker) is the leader of one of these happy bands, taking his troop on their missions accompanied by the hulking multi-machine gunned and missile firing Dead Reckoning for support. The zombies (or walkers or stenches as they are more commonly called) seem little more than canon fodder while distracted by the fireworks lighting up the nighttime’s skies. Things change when Cholo (John Leguizamo), is dealt an unfair hand by the man upstairs, Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), and wants to extract a deadly revenge by using Dead Reckoning against those it was designed to protect.
On his way out to pastures new, Riley gets caught up in some unwanted action and ends up being forced to hunt down and bring Dead Reckoning back home with or without Cholo. With his motley crew, the slightly dim back guard Charlie (Robert Joy), streetwise hooker Slack (Asia Argento), and three of Hoffman’s security type guards, go off into the post-apocalyptic wastes. <!--page-->
The dead have other things in mind (I still can’t get to grips with using dead and mind in the same sentence), led by Big Daddy (Eugene Clark); an army of the undead amass. These shuffling stenches take offence at the indiscriminate slaughter from the brainy ones and it is time for some payback.
Plenty of gut munching and exploding heads ensues, and the effects are top notch. In the unrated edition there are slight extensions to present scenes and dialogue, or if you are in the UK we have a whole new scene included when a neighbour of Hoffman’s decides things are getting too much and is quickly dispatched in a head smashing manner by the visiting Cholo.
Romero has a little fun with his previous entries; to mention them all would spoil some of the fun, so for starters you have the happy band of road raiders, closely resembling his biker gang that besieged the shopping mall in ‘Dawn’ , even to the extent of having Tom Savini back in biker garb as the Machete Zombie. The flashlight looking through the dark in the ammo shed harks back to the cellar horrors again from ‘Dawn’ . And the Big Daddy zombie can be seen as a development from the likable Bub from ‘Day’ .
The unrated edition has lots of extras with it too. Starting with a commentary by the gore meister himself joined by other members of the cast and crew. There are ‘Undead Again: The Making of Land of the Dead’ and ‘A Day With the Living Dead’ , which gives us our obligatory making of section, the latter with John Leguizamo cursing his way through the sets and having a little fun with some zombies along the way. ‘Bringing the Dead Back to Life’ is of more interest as we see the make up special effects team, including Greg Nicotero, at play with some of the best of their work. Best of all in the extras department is ‘Zombie Effects: From Green Screen to Finished Scene’ , which will leave you dumbfounded to the extent of the effects work, with landscapes being unnoticeably manufactured and matte painted, that you the viewer and myself included, took for being the real deal. There is also a nice touch with those guys from ‘Shaun of the Dead’ , Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, getting to play with the big boys to become cameo zombies in a horror fans wet dream come true. A few deleted scenes, with not much meat in them are shown in ‘The Remaining Bits’ and some storyboard comparisons are present in ‘Bringing the Storyboards to Life’ .
The extras ‘Scream Tests’ and ‘Scenes of Carnage’ sound more interesting than what they are and should be left to rot alone.
Housed in a shiny slip case this is a well produced and filled DVD with great sound options coming from the Dolby Digital 5.1 and the even better DTS tracks, just the thing to hear the bullets whiz and the brain matter splat around the room.
'Land of the Dead Unrated Director's Cut' is available to buy now via Amazon , and as of yet no UK release date has been given.database .
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