Review: Land of the Dead

Last night after volleyball, Mike and I watched Land of the Dead which is the fourth film in George Romero’s Dead series.

I was pretty excited to see this film as I had only see the other three parts and the third one was made in 1985. 20 years later, I’m sure a zombie film can be beefed up immensely with the aid of something I like to call the ‘puter.

When we last left the Dead, they had infiltrated an army bunker where some scientists and army types were hanging out trying to figure out how to get out of this mess.

Fast forward to sometime in the future where the Dead seem to run rampant around the countryside (if not the world, although it sounds like Canada fared well during these times. Go Canada!) and humans rarely go outside of their barricaded cities. However, with any civilization, someone at the top has to screw it up for all of us (read: Bush) and so the rich live in luxury, while the poor live in the dregs.

As for the Dead, they happen to evolve during this movie – learn how to use crude tools to get to a goal, learn to communicate together, etc. It was interesting to wonder if they’ll make it so the Dead actually become human again over time. That would be wild.

There as an interesting part of the movie where they used fireworks to make the Dead stare up into the sky so the humans could go about their adventures since the Dead didn’t even bother with them while there were some cool lights in the sky. I read how Robert Epert compared this to the shock and awe tactics used by the Bush Administration. Interesting. What’s also interesting is the fact that the Dead finally realize the fireworks mean nothing and keep on doing their zombie thing; eating people and wreaking havoc. Take that!

Also read on the Internet (I’m just cribbing a bunch of this stuff from the Wikipedia entry) is that George Romero stated that the movie was a statement on the current Bush administration. Wild.

My favourite part was when they cut to some underground gambling/bar/general human mayhem establishment and the humans were paying money to get their picture taken with two chained up zombies. NO WAY! That hit home as to how humans can ignore the actual danger that’s out there by making a mockery of it. Fast fact: I missed it, but it turns out that the two chained up zombies for the picture taking were none other than the two guys from Shaun of the Dead. I want to see the movie again just to catch that!

I give this 5 bloody killings out of 5 because I thought the idea portrayed in the film were excellent, the zombie mayhem was coolness (and they realize they can breathe (do zombies breathe?) in the water!) and overall, I would say the best of the series (next to the original of course).

One day, I’ll have to check out the remakes of Dawn and Day, but for now, I’ve filled my zombie quota for the month.

Thanks to Marc-Bernard for lending us this flick!