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George Romero the master of the horror film with brains (not just for munching) manages to rouse our senses in gore infested social commentary 4 deaces after his original masterpiece "Night of the Living Dead." What separates Romero from the chaff is that his zombie movies especially in the 1978 Dawn of the Dead are really not zombie movies whatsoever. The zombie plague in Dawn was more about the plague of consumerism, and in this new film the zombie plague is really the plague of paranoia or the plague of poverty separating the elite and the rest of us zombies on our daily routines of serving our masters in the towers (certainly a shot at the folks of Enron and their ilk).Romero is old school and what strikes one about Land of the Dead versus the fun but pointless Dawn of the Dead remake is that CGI is NOT our friend. The Dawn remake and most CGI films have an artificiality about them. Romero is old school. With his biggest budget ever for a Romero zombie film, a massive reported 15 - 17 million, he has more money than he has had in his three previous zombie films combined and by a rather massive margin. Romero uses good old puppets bags of entrials and stomach turning(literally) raw special effects.
The plot you can read about on other sites such as rottentomatoes.com, but like Dawn of the Dead (1979) land of the Dead has a plethora of social commentary of a time in our not too distant future as a post 9/11 world. Three groups, The social elite, the people who serve that elite and a new downtrodden zombie class (third world) growing smarter with each passing day and interestingly the most humane of the lot. Mixed with a steady helping of humour and absolute over the top gore the film manages a strange process of dessensitization as the gore increases farther into the film we watch and it becomes almost routine.
The casting of Dennis Hopper alone is enough to chuckle at a commentary of 60's hipsters who have traded their ponchos in for mega corp suits. Hopper as you will recall was a main figure in Easy Rider. Here he is Kaufman a ruthless CEO that Trump and George W Bush would be proud of. Kaufman provides the liquer and other vices to the peons and has mercenaries run and gun the zombie wasteland for items he needs to keep the rich fat cats secure in their towers with the niceties of life and screw the rest.
It's not all politics and social commentary -- a band of survivors we like simply want to leave this strange bankrupt self made prison - take a truck and go to Canada - Micheal Moore would have had a chuckle at this I suspect. Maybe Zombies in Canada won't eat you without permission? And perhaps in Canada they don't treat the zombies so bad and thus don't incur the zombie wrath?
There is much humour in this film as zombies attempt to live their old lives playing the tuba or working as gas station attendants. the zombies here are growing smarter not being fooled into diversionary fireworks tactics used in previous encounters. And lets not forget the gore -- there are a few jumps sprinkled in but the fear Romero creates is more in the politics of his films and the gross-out effects.
All of course is not perfect. The film lacks character development - we get no real time with any of the characters -- one could argue that we as the audience are thrown in the middle of this film at a snapshot point. However, if George had been allowed another 1/2 hour to get into the heads a little of the people in the two main social classes instead of the arm's length social commentary this could have perhaps been transcendant - rather than insightful commentary in a fun horror film. Whereas in Dawn I could put myself in the four main characters shoes and genuinely felt for them, here I felt the characters were largely charicatures. It still works but it does take some of the possible emotional weight away from the central characters. On the other hand Romero manages to get feeling more with his zombies. It is clear to me Romero prefers his zombies in this film and that is where the emotion lies.
If you are not interested in seeing numerous decapitations spikes in the head, heads being crushed, pulled off, intestines being ripped out through the mouth, and numerous grissly body parts being munched on then this is not the movie to be watching -- especially after eating a big bowl of Spaghetti.
However, there is a bit of the Ghoulish in most of us and the Zombies despite their nature are treated as a pitiable underclass and that friends is why like Dawn of the Dead, Land of the Dead draws its life and why this film is very strong. Not as raw or scary as Night of the Living Dead, and not as strong as the seminal work of the original Dawn of the Dead, it is nevertheless the best zombie film since those two works. The master has come home to his genre and takes the copycats to school err or eats them for lunch!
Follow Ups:
Very nice post on LotD RGA...thanks!An acquaintance of mine had a small bit part in the film, and consequently has seen the original, longer, cut of the film and says that the studio did Dead fans a disservice when they pressured Romero to cut it down. I think the longer cut may address the issue you had with characterisation and (for me) expansiveness. I've heard that his cut was anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes longer, net reports have mentioned that there was a very interesting opening sequence involving a wedding party, and that no longer appears to be the case with the theatrical cut.
Well thank heaven for DVD. I think the studio wants a fast paced edit for the low attention span masses.I never understood the length complaint of Dawn of the Dead which was IMO the best of this series. It was also the longest - but it served its characters and mood well. It's one of the only horror films I can watch over and over again -- and given the production values even then, that says something. There are a few good jumps in this one as well but it's never really been about theat. The scariest thing of all is fear itself and how the human survivors act. This in Land of the Dead has been retained thankfully.
Simon Pegg of Shawn of the Dead (this was a hoot) had a cameo but I missed it.
Yes, I thought 'DotD' was strong, all things considered (era, budget etc). Too bad about the remake, which my friend (who's a diehard Dead fan) dragged me to see. I didn't hate it, but it certainly didn't have many layers to enjoy, compared to the original.I think Simon Pegg's cameo was the scene where people were having their pictures taken with captured zombies.
I actually liked the Dawn Re-make as a straight ahead actuion horror. It's not terribly insightful like the original. Still it was fun in a theme-park ride kind of way -- the opening 10 minutes was strong. Some of the characters were utterly unconvincing card board characters -- and too many of them.I'm going to see Land tomorrow again with someone else so I'll look closer at the picture scene (which was kind of funny). Now Romero needs to make Twilight of the Dead, Country of the Dead, Planet of the Dead. You can never have too many zombies -- if this makes some money they may give him an even bigger budget for another one.
allegories for consumerism, or whatever. First and foremost, they are boring gore fests with little suspense.
His original installment, NoftheLD, is still a classic, of course.
Dawn of the Dead is also a classic. Land of the Dead is not nearly as accomplished as his first two Zombie entries. Sounds like the studio claws dug into this one a bit too much.
mean a cult favorite, that's quite another thing.
For many reasons, Dawn is a piece of crap compared to its predecessor. Instead of the gore being part of the story, it had become THE story at that point. Do you not see the difference?
Tin, have you actually seen Dawn?
Chock full of cynical comment on the urban decay, the media, US gun culture, and of course, consumerism. The idea of portraying the zombies as nothing more than stupid cannon fodder is topical in the extreme. Blood and guts - for goodness sakes, we can get used to that, they aren't like us, they are just zombies. One could say it was the product of too many sick computer games, but there were no PCs when it was made. Certainly an exercise in alienation and dehumanising in a very big way, with a big dose of wry humour and an interesting Goblins soundtrack.
Cheers,
John K
How many horror movies by the end has the main villain go from disgusting and reviled to pitiable and to be rooted for? This film has so much to say, says it so well, and all the while it's covered up in one heck of a good horror film to boot.And heck people usually never even get into the feminism commentary around Fran (the Galen Ross character).
Night of the Living Dead was raw and scarier -- Dawn is more ambitious and satirical and Land is a product of the times. I would very much like to see the eventual longer cut. I saw it a second time today with some others and the gore is Laugh out loud over the top. And even for me a little stomach turning (pulling someone's stomach out through their mouth) is gonna make most people feel that little gag reflex in the back of their throat. But that's the fun horror stuff. I would like more time in the Fiddler's Green...but more importantly at the film;s end --- I want to see another movie with these people. Leave them wanting more -- is the sign of a Good movie. Not quite great, but one of the better horror films of the last oh since the original Dawn.
I haven't seen the Dawn remake or the new Land, and probably won't bother.I've got to say that some people just don't get it. I remember taking Dawn to a video night with a group of friends. I was laughing away and wondered why everyone else was so quiet. They were all in shock.
Another I really like in that similar genre, though without the gore, is Q The Winged Serpent, made my Larry Cohen in NY. Fantastic performance by Michael Moriarty who plays a real loser.
Cheers,
John K
Good lord! Saw that during its first run...honestly can't really remember much about it. Was it any good? Wasn't David Carradine in it?
Cheers,
John K
No Dawn of the Dead was not about the Gore the least bit and it served another social satirical purpose. And it's a shame you could not see what Romero was going after -- his score should have given it a way a little bit as a prgression inverse throughout the film.Many people consider it a classic -- it is by far the smartest Horror film I have ever seen, the most human, and one of the rare films that has the villain not be the villain.
Dawn of the Dead is Zombies and gore on the surface -- but it is not a movie ABOUT zombies and gore.
Very clever on several different levels. It is a bit like, say The Blues Brothers where you can watch it again and again and still keep picking up new little angles and jokes. Suspense? I never thought suspense worked well in black humour.
Cheers,
John K
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