Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
“Zombies, man. They creep me out.”

2005 R / Horror Action Directed by: George A. Romero Starring: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper

Tagline

The Legendary Filmmaker Brings You His Ultimate Zombie Masterpiece

Summary Capsule

Zombies rule the earth. A really nice skyscraper is ruled by an arrogant jerk. Who do you think will win?

Mutant Meter

Movie Store [proceeds go toward monthly MRFH upkeep]

Soundtrack

Kyle's Rating: Like the man said, “I think this is going to be another one of those funky ones”
Kyle's Review: Unsurprisingly, the critical consensus over this movie seems to follow a simple pattern. If you dig George Romero’s original holy trilogy of zombie films, you’ll probably dig this one. Those who really treasure Romero’s horror work and immediately think of the director when they hear the words “social commentary” or “rampant consumerism” will be especially willing to defend Land of the Dead until any conversational antagonist has been reduced to zombie status. See what I did there? I brought up zombies in a real world situation. Pretty cool, eh?

"The inclusion of money is taken to absurd extremes and had me staring in disbelief at a film that tried to make me buy into characters being motivated by piles and piles of cash, despite the fact that the world has apparently been reduced to occasional outposts, and logically the only real use for paper money at that point would be as kindling and rough toilet paper."

Sadly, my little writing sleight-of-hand right there is a lot more involving and interesting than this film. I would have felt bad, but I saw it with my friend Chance, and right around the time I was realized Land was pretty lame (around six minutes into it) he leaned over and said, “This is lame. Let’s leave and get our money back.” I whispered we should stay, figuring I’d get a Mutant review out of it, and Chance busied himself with a trip for water and nachos. In retrospect, we should have left and/or snuck into Batman Begins, even if I had seen it three times by then. Batman would have been awesome!

Actually, here’s a nifty barometer for Land of the Dead: if you think it is (1) clever; and (2) interesting in a meta-argumentative manner for Romero to heavily play the money-as-power card and run into the ground the fact that powerful people with money are bad and poor people with dreams are good, then it might be “fun” and “rewarding” for you to sit through this movie. If you’re psyched for it, don’t worry about those being the only issues that get touched upon. Terrorism, racism, and sexism get touched upon as well. How there’s any time for zombie action among all this, I’ll never know.

I really hate having to come down on a film that appears to be genuinely interested in melding horror with social issues in an intelligent way, but I took offense, and still do, at the film contorting itself in an annoying way to attempt to get the best of both worlds. As is usually the case, it failed at achieving either in a believable or interesting way.

Money is certainly the root of all this trouble. Not in execution, though. The film looks great, the effects are pretty good, and the zombies are just what I wanted. But story-wise, the inclusion of money is taken to absurd extremes and had me staring in disbelief at a film that tried to make me buy into characters being motivated by piles and piles of cash, despite the fact that the world has apparently been reduced to occasional outposts, and logically the only real use for paper money at that point would be as kindling and rough toilet paper. Maybe I missed the dialogue that talked about another place in the world of this film that still took Mastercard and Traveler’s Checks, but otherwise I couldn’t help but thinking that money wouldn’t buy much more than cheap laughs and “Are you kidding? I said pay in bullets” glares from bartenders and stuff.

Meanwhile, here’s another problem I had with Cholo needing money from Hopper: Cholo is part of a roving gang that travels around the zombie-infested countryside looking for supplies and whatnot to bring back to Fiddler’s Green for everybody. If money still has value at this point like it did pre-zombies (and the way Cholo demands $5 million, it certainly seems to), why not rob every cash register and ATM that can be found? The way bullets and missiles get tossed around, it really shouldn’t be too much trouble for Cholo and a group of lackeys to clear out enough zombies to be able to safely crack a bank vault somewhere and clear out a nice retirement fund. Instead, it seems like Hopper controls all the money in the world, which begs the question of where Cholo plans to bring his ill-gotten funds and what he thinks he can do with it. We’re supposed to hate Hopper because he’s the rascist guy with all the money, view Cholo distastefully because he’s all about money and he’s willing to commit terrorist acts to get what he feels he deserves, and think of Simon Baker as the hero because he cares about the lives of all innocent living people and he just wants to get away from it all and make it to Canada where there are either less zombies or ones easier to kill. Personally, I thought of Baker as the hero just because he has the common sense to be paid in guns, ammo, and a car.

There are other strange quirks that were vastly more fun to consider than paying full attention to the film. All the people living in luxury in Fiddler’s Green, wearing suits and expensive dresses and buying expensive items and whatnot: how are they supporting themselves? Are they just living off of the money they accumulated in the pre-zombie world? What sort of white collar jobs could there be in a post-zombies world, even if we’re talking about the sheltered bubble of Fiddler’s Green? When zombies attack, a lot of the “businessmen” run off holding a loved one’s hand in one fist and a briefcase in the other. What’s so important that it’s worth taking with you when almost certain death is upon you? Why didn’t anyone ever consider the benefit of an escape plan being devised, even a rudimentary one? If zombies are pretty much earthbound and confined to walking/shambling attacks, why would Hopper’s (presumably) secret method of escape involve going to an underground parking garage, necessitating a long drive to street level and then another drive to wherever his boat was docked?

There are a lot more questions than satisfactory answers in Land of the Dead. I can’t help but think that if the hugely clunky plot device of money had been completely removed from the equation, the film would have been much more real and devastating. Instead, we get the usual stuff: rich people are racist and selfish, poor/working people are downtrodden yet strong, zombies attack all that lives. I just don’t think short bursts of zombie action, even courtesy of horror maestro Romero, is worth the hassle of sitting through nonsensical plot devices, even if under the guise of “social commentary.” The gore, including a zombie’s graphic removal of a woman’s belly button piercing, may be offensive to your personal sense of safety, but the story is offensive to your intelligence. Stick with either Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later (yes, I know they’re not zombies) for modern zombie horror needs.

Justin's Rating: A little less fun than actually being a zombie
Justin's Review: "Roar! I’m a zombie! Be scared!

"What, zombies don’t roar? What about meow? Cluck? Chitter? Growl? Okay, growl. I can do growl. Grrrrr… owl. Guess I’ll work on that later.

"It’s not a living, it’s a stinking travesty."

"So, I’m wandering the countryside, looking for a weak or aged human to ’run’ down at zero shuffles an hour, seeking a bit of brain to nibble on whilst I dream of the future. At this point, a decrepit old man hobbles up to me. First off, I thought he was a brother in the zombie family, which is why we just kind of bumped shoulders and kept going. But then he talked — ah the humans, I envy their speech — and told me that he was George A. Romero. THE George Romero.

"I had no idea who that was.

"He explained that he made a couple really famous zombie documentaries back in the day, and supposedly was the granddaddy of the genre. I couldn’t quite tell him, growling in Morse code, that the area of my brain that gave a crap to such old distinctions had dribbled from my nose the week previous. This aging cowboy said he wanted to go for one last ride, one final hurrah in the same field in which he entered the movie world. One more zombie flick, for good measure.

"Yeah, well, yours truly has never been that photogenic — and I’m sensitive enough about it, thank you very much — to want to be in a feature, but this human offered me at least three chained-up teenage delinquents as pay. Food’s food, my pappy always said, right before he ate my ma.

"So that’s how I got to be an undead extra on Land of the Dead, trotting slowly down the same path of my ancestors. Wobbling toward the living. Bumping awkwardly into doors and small park benches. Having various limbs shot off painfully, then reattached with movie duct tape, only to be plugged again. Biting into and feasting on nasty-tasting special effects gore that looked quite red but tasted like flowers. Being yet again the butt of every joke in the monster world. It’s not a living, it’s a stinking travesty.

"Oh, Romero promised all sorts of perks and original twists and scathing social satire using us undead fodder as a blunt, scabby tool. But we knew better — that in a world full of new-school zombie marathon running and video game-to-movie adaptations, we ‘traditional’ zombiekin are nothing more than archaic has-been’s, meekly doing whatever we’re told for one last laugh instead of one last scream.

"It didn’t really help matters that Romero wanted to portray a new type of Thinking Zombie, something on par with a dim-witted ape, because he didn’t go far enough. How could we not be embarrassed, when the director orders us to clumsily use tools and pump gas when most of us have post-graduate degrees and work in the science sector? If we’re going to be intelligent, then George there needed to jack up the I.Q. above ‘pre-school’ to keep the audiences snickering at our ineptitude.

"Fine, whatever. See the movie, if you’re an ‘of the Dead’ series fan, or if you’re a zombie completeist and need to see every corpse-fest that comes out. But don’t say I didn’t warn you — United Zombie Association #143 doesn’t support this type of mediocrity, and we never will."

Sheesh. Zombies taking our jobs, our women, our flesh... what's next? Marsha dreamed of a better life. Also, a better dental plan. Dennis Hopper... how far you've fallen in the pantheon of scary people.

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• When Cholo is raiding the liquor store in Uniontown he takes cigars from a display. Liquor stores in Pennyslvannia (which are all state run) do not sell tobacco products of any kind. The only items one can buy in them other than wine and spirits are corkscrews and wine sleeves.
• My friend Luke pointed out that the big bald main zombie (Big Daddy) occasionally has a sweaty scalp.
• You wouldn’t think a zombie would sweat, would you?
• Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright from Shaun of the Dead are in here as the zombies people can get their picture taken with. George A. Romero was so impressed with Shaun that he asked them to make the cameos
• In the bar sequence with the zombie pit fighters, Bub the Zombie from Day of the Day is chained by the neck next to another zombie
• This is the first movie by George A. Romero to include the word "zombie" both written and spoken

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Nope!

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

The original title was “Dead Reckoning,” based around the Dead Reckoning truck (which early reports claimed was more impressive than Batman Begins’ [bat]-Tumbler but were clearly wrong about). It makes one wonder if the original script had more elements involving Dead Reckoning, since in the finished film it’s just a sorta-cool-but-not-really RV with guns and fireworks

This is the fourth film in George Romero's zombie series which Romero says it takes place after Night of the Living Dead with no specific time frame. The last zombie film he wrote and directed was Day of the Dead (1985) which was released twenty years ago.

'George A. Romero' intended to make this film in his home town Pittsburgh - the story is set there and it's where he made his other zombie films. However his producers insisted on filming Toronto in order to take advantage of Canadian tax incentives.

Asia Argento (Slack) is the daughter of noted Italian horror filmmaker Dario Argento, who was the co-producer of one of this film's prequels: Dawn of the Dead (1978). Asia Argento is also SUPER-HOT (Kyle’s opinion) and has awesome tattoos and piercings. Sadly, she is super-wasted in this film. Not as in “wasted on drugs,” that is; she’s just used like she should be. Er, that sounded kind of dirty. See New Rose Hotel or Scarlet Diva if you want to see Argento used... um, properly... oh, man, I’m going to hell . . .

Groovy Quotes

Kaufman: Zombies, man. They creep me out.

Kaufman: In a world where the dead are returning to life, the word "trouble" loses much of its meaning.

Charlie: Nice shooting.
Riley: Good shooting, Charlie. No such thing as nice shooting.

Slack: [talking about Riley] You take care of him, huh?
Charlie: Hell, yeah. He pulled me out of the fire. It was bad... Just look at me, you can tell it was bad.

Pillsbury: [Motown is hotwiring a car] Yellow to red!
Motown: What the f**k does a Samoan know about hotwiring a f**king car?
Pillsbury: 50,000 cars stolen in Samoa every year.
Motown: Well, a million in Detroit.
Pillsbury: Detroit has 50 million cars. Samoa, 50,000. Every one stolen.

Riley: [about the fireworks] Put some flowers in the graveyard.
Charlie: "Put some flowers in the graveyard". How come you call them that, Riley? I don't get it. There here ain't the kind of flowers you lay on the ground, these here are sky flowers. Way up in heaven...
Riley: That's why I love you, Charlie, 'cause you still believe in heaven.

Kaufman: We do not negotiate with terrorists!

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Dawn of the Dead
• Dawn of the Dead (remake)
• Shaun of the Dead