Land of the Dead (2005)

REVIEW

During the summer of 2005, the Internet seemed abuzz with negative word on Land and there were genuine worries for the quality of the film. Romero may have made The Crazies (1973), Martin (1977) and the Dead trilogy but his recent record hadn't been great. In fact, since 1993's so-so The Dark Half, he'd only managed to direct one film, the frankly quite terrible Bruiser (2000).

It's particularly pleasing then to report that the Net had got it wrong again and that the grand old master was well and truly back on form. Land of the Dead may be louder, faster, shallower and more superficial than the previous Dead films but it's a damn fine effort in its own right. Forsaking the relentless bleakness of Day of the Dead - it feels more comfortable to imagine the events of Land taking place some time between Dawn and Day - Land imagines a post-zombie world where the surviving humans have sealed themselves into a heavily fortified city while the zombies, variously known as 'stenches' or 'walkers' are left to fend for themselves in the countryside. But all is not well in the human city as the wealthy elite barricade themselves into the luxury tower block Fiddler's Green and the poor forage for what they can in the streets below, constantly facing the threat of imminent zombie attack. Meanwhile, out in the surrounding countryside, the stenches are evolving and under the leadership of one particularly clever specimen, a zombie army is marching on the city...

Early drafts of the Land of the Dead script - then titled Dead Reckoning - didn't really seem at all inspiring; the central conceit of a huge, zombie killing battletruck seemed too reminiscent of... well, the dreadful Battletruck / Warlords of the 21st Century (1982). But Romero did a fantastic job in transferring a rather suspect idea to the screen in some style - the emphasis is much more on action here than it ever was in the earlier Dead films and Romero proves himself as adept at the big set-pieces as he is at the more sociological aspects of the film.

And being a Romero zombie film means that we're going to get plenty of social satire and biting commentary on the state of play in early 21st century America. Where Night had been the product of an America gripped by racial tensions and fighting a pointless war in Vietnam, Dawn had been a swipe at the rampant consumerism that Romero cannily foresaw sweping the nation within the next decade and Day was a crack at the militarism of 80s America, Land is just as coruscating indictment of the social ills that still plague the USA. With an irony that Romero would surely have loved, Land opened in the UK in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina devestated New Orleans and which, in its aftermath, exposed the inequities and social divisions that still ravage American society, echoing the main theme of Land of the Dead.

The Dead series had always featured strong black characters in key roles, something still disappointingly rare in the genre - in Night Duane Jones was of course the resourceful hero; in Dawn, Ken Foree took on the mantle and turned his macho SWAT commando into a charismatic, sympathetic and somewhat reluctant hero; and in Day, Terry Alexander provides one of the few voices of reason in a world gone truly insane as philosophical helicopter pilot John. In Land, Romero cannily doesn't give us what we expected - this time the black character is Big Daddy (never named as such in the film), the evolving 'super zombie' who, Moses-like, leads the undead hordes in their march on their promised land, the walled city whose inhabitants have used them for sport, slaves and entertainment for far too long. Though not quite up to the standard of Howard Sherman's brilliant performance as Bub in Day, Eugene Clark still gives a sterling turn as the emotionally conflicted and intellectually advanced zombie trying to organise his people in a revolt that will literally change everything.

This strife-riddled post-apocalyptic society is well realised and Romero finally got to use some of the ideas that he'd had for Day but which had to remain unfilmed until now when that film fell foul of budget restrictions. The cast is excellent, particularly Simon Baker, Robert Joy and Asia Argento, but their thunder is well and truly stolen by an under-used but utterly brilliant Dennis Hopper (looking curiously like Christopher Lee from some angles) as the ruthless leader of the exclusive Fiddler's Green community. It's a more understated and restrained performance than we've been used to from Hopper and it's all the more chilling and effective for it - his ruthless, self-serving executive perfectly personifies the central tenet that has driven all four of the Dead films, that we've got more to fear from ourselves than we have from the dead.

The film certainly doesn't skimp on the violence - a fact not evident from the film's 15 certificate from the now more relaxed and lenient British Board of Film Censors - and some of the effects gags are genuinely alarming, none more so than the hilarious bit with the apparently headless priest and the moment when a zombie takes a liking to a belly button ring is one of the nastiest in any Romero film.

The first few years of the 21st century had seen an upturn in the fortunes of the zombie film and 2004 had been a particularly fruitful year for the walking dead. Good though Versus (2000), 28 Days Later... (2002), Dawn of the Dead (2004) and Shaun of the Dead (2004) had been (the latter's star Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright get cameos here as the photo booth zombies), there was something very special about seeing the master back at work at long last. Romero had been away for far too long and Land of the Dead proved that even at the age of 65 he'd lost none of his flair for shock, his ability to craft a genuinely gripping story and his unflinching sense of justice and equality. Welcome back George, we've missed you!
KEVIN LYONS

Last Updated: 15 October, 2008