George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead finally makes it to the UK three months after a somewhat lukewarm reception stateside, and despite my low expectations I thought the film was absolutely brilliant.
I must be in a minority amongst critics or something, but I fail to see how people didn’t enjoy this kick ass mother of a movie.
With society almost completely annihilated thanks to the zombie plague which started in ‘Night of the Living Dead’, the survivors of Pittsburgh have taken to living in a somewhat secure section of the City, with the wealthy and powerful members of society living in the elite Fiddler’s Green, a huge skyscraper complex with all the latest mod cons.
From its creepy opening to its satisfying conclusion, the film managed to be entertaining, politically outspoken, humorous, scary, gross and just altogether cool.
The cast were all very good here, with Simon Baker doing a great job of leading the way. I always felt sorry for him landing a weak part in The Ring 2, so it was good to see him in a better role. Asia Argento was great (as always) and even John Leguizamo, who usually plays characters which annoy me, was cool.
The clever references and cameos from some big names in the zombie genre were very welcome and well handled, and there was more than one sequence which stood out for me but there were definite highlights, such as the shot of the zombies rising out of the water.
I was eager to see how Romero would cope with the more modern method of filmmaking i.e. having people take over your project and force you to make a kiddie friendly piece of watered down crap, but he did a great job, managing to tell his story in a fresh and highly approachable way.
The effects work by Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero was great, (obviously) with one sequence involving a zombie’s brittle finger nails snapping off making me wince like a sissy.
OVERALL SUMMARY
I honestly can’t understand why people didn’t like this. Sure it’s not as intellectually challenging as some of the previous entries into the series, but it’s definitely one of the better horror movies I’ve seen lately. Say what you like about the movie but there’s no denying Romero’s still got it.
