Zombie Movie Review (8): Land of the Dead

“In a world where the dead return to life, trouble loses much of its meaning”

Well here, we are the final chapter (for the moment anyway) in the George Romero Zombie Saga. Now I know what you are all thinking: This was not the last film, the latest film was Survival of the Dead. Yes, yes, I know. I know I skipped this one and went to Diary of the Dead. But in reality, I only skipped it if I was going for chronology rather than continuity. Land of the Dead is a funny movie (and I don’t mean funny as in it is a comedy [although it does have its moments] but funny as in interesting).

So originally, Land of the Dead was going to be the fourth installment of the original Romero trilogy: Night, Dawn, and Day. In fact, one of the alternate titles for Land was Twilight of the Dead (to bad Romero didn’t use it so Stephanie Meyers couldn’t but “Kay-Sara-Sara”). The original title was going to be Dead Reckoning after the armored super tank in the film. However, fans like the “of the dead” titles and there was already a Humphrey Bogart film with that name anyway.

The way it was going to work was Land was going to be like five, 10, years after Day. Implying that society somehow reestablished itself and money still had value (I’ll get to this silly idea later) The only real sense of continuity between Land and the original 3 is: 1) it is set at the post-apocalypse ass end of a zombie out break which would follow the apocalyptic tone of Day, 2) One of the main zombies is played by Tom Savini, dressed in his biker outfit from Dawn, and 3) I’m not entirely sure this even counts because it would be breaking the fourth wall (for those non film buffs out there, this is a term used to describe when characters, scene, or events suggest they/the film are/is aware that it is indeed a movie they are in like looking at the camera, saying don’t have sex, the killer will get you if you do, or making remarks about how the set looks fake, etc.) by having a zombie band sort of play the Gonk music that was played at the end of Dawn of the Dead and had a 5 second cameo in Day of the Dead.

Once Romero came up with Diary and certainly while doing Survival, he retcond this continuity and established it as part of the new trilogy. (Retcon is a comic book term used to describe events that took place in older issues that are no longer part of the accepted universe of the characters in the comic and thus removed from the original continuity. Also as a fun fact, this is what the characters of the Doctor Who spin-off show Torchwood call their amnesia drug: Retcon).

However, Romero ran into a bit of a snafu with the Copyrights and the production company used in making Land of the Dead which is the only one of his films that is not done independently. The soldier character played by Alan Van Sprang in Land is called Brubaker. Romero wanted to use this character in Survival (who is also in Diary but his name was never mentioned) as a main character. The production company said that he could not use his own character in another of his own movies because he does not own the rights to his own creation. I know right? This character only appears for like two minutes in Land, his name is only mentioned twice, and I would imagine the production company would actually make more money from people seeing Diary and Survival who now want to see Land but whatever. George Romero did fix this small problem however, quite easily and ingeniously: give him the most ridiculous and cliché sounding action-hero name possible so that people will think: “well, obviously it is a pseudonym”). Thus Sarge Nicotine Crocket was born! Using his ultra-super powers, he dedicated his life to fighting zombies! (Sorry I couldn’t resist) Unfortunately, for him though, despite making it thru the first two movies, he dies in Land.

Another thing that proves continuity with Diary and Survival is that the “white guy” I mentioned in the Diary of the Dead review, is a crucial lead zombie in land as a butcher. Now, he did not seem like a butcher in Diary, he could have had any reason for putting on that smock and picking up that clever before he died (think of that episode in Walking Dead Season 1 where they chop up a zombie. See? There is a reason for everything).

Well that’s enough introduction, don’t you think? Now onto the review: Overall, it is objectively Romero’s worst zombie film. Do not just take my word for it: fans all over the world agree. Even Romero said it was his worst zombie film but he blamed it on it being produced rather than independently done.

Somehow as I said earlier, society reestablished itself and the almighty dollar still has value somehow after a couple of years of a zombie apocalypse…..yeah….I don’t get it either. Anyway, the movie surrounds some people who want to get out of the safe zone and go north to live and be alone…they feel society is warped. And, it certainly is: people get their rocks off by betting on fights between two hungry zombies and whoever eats the girl who did not volunteer first, wins. This girl by the way, who becomes a main character, is played by Asia Argento, Dario Argento’s (producer and soundtrack provider of Dawn of the Dead 1978) daughter. Kind of like how Bill Cardille’s (reporter in Night of the Living Dead) daughter plays the lead role in Day of the Dead.

Also as another fun fact, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) cameo as zombies in Land of the Dead. They are the zombies chained up for people to get their pictures taken with. You may notice that Pegg is wearing the same prosthetic mold of Bub from Day of the Dead who is in fact Pegg’s favorite zombie. If you notice in Shaun of the Dead, when they pretend to be zombies, Shaun’s character does a zombie impression very much like that of Bub.

So? Redeeming values? Well, the main antagonist dies in a very Romero ironic way. Also as a zombie movie it’s not so great but you can find an underlying message. The movie is about class struggle. The survivors that built Fiddler’s Green, where all the rich survivors live, don’t get to live in it and live on the streets in a pretty much dictatorship dystopian future society world seen in movies like Soylent Green for instance. And if you want to get even more allegorical, you can go as far to say the rich are the super rich, the impoverished are the lower middle class, and the zombies are the poverty working class revolting and fighting back against the system of oppression. However, all that does is anthropomorphize the zombie’s way beyond necessary and the zombies end up for the most part being as smart, if not smarter than Bub was. And Bub is the exception not the rule. Romero is all about feasible monsters. For example: “dead things don’t run” rot would cause the tendons to snap. And smart zombies don’t make sense in this type of world. The brains have certainly atrophied and even without the rotting, they are dead. A person, who is dead for more than 10 minutes, if revived, will suffer severe brain damage and have a loss of memory, body functions, even be a vegetable. If you have been dead for months and rotting, you are not going to be able to learn as time goes on as living human beings do.

So my rating? It’s clear I don’t like the film, and most people don’t. However, I have seen so many zombie movies that suck much more than this, ones that suck so bad, I cannot even watch past 5 minutes. Furthermore, I know there are even more of the uber-suck zombie flicks out there that I refuse to accept as existing let alone watch. Because of this, I cannot give Land too low of a rating, and therefore. Land of the Dead gets a generous, but deserved for not being total crap: 2.5 out of 5 stars.