Land of the Dead

George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
Universal (June 24, 2005)
Director: George A. Romero
Cast: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Asia Argento, Robert Joy,Dennis Hopper, Eugene Clark

View the trailer


Twenty years after the release of Day of the Dead, "legendary" filmmaker George A. Romero--not to be confused with George "Fireball" Romero of Pensicola, Florida--comes back for one more zombie movie. Sadly, the time naming convention of the previous three movies in the series has been scrapped; personally, I felt that Twilight of the Dead, Sunset of the Dead, or even "It's Almost Dinnertime, So Don't Go Spoiling Your Appetite" of the Dead would've worked as better titles than the boring Land, but maybe that's just my opinion.

Anywho, Romero is back with this film, no doubt trying desperately to cash in on some of the zombified money made by Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and the remake to Dawn of the Dead in recent years. Well, according to the trailer, he's back to put a cap on his legacy or some such nonsense. An obvious lie. And I don't think we can begrudge him too much for this blatant money grab, seeing as, after all, many of the greats of cinema were solely about making money--Greg Steelberg, Randy West (I), and Bud Lee, to name a few. Besides, while checking up on Romero's bio, I noticed this summary for his upcoming epic, Diamond Dead:

Aria De Winter has been enlisted by Death himself to kill 365 people in one year. Hard task? Well, it helps when Aria is planning an historic concert for the Diamond Dead, the world's most famous underground rock band. It also helps that she's the ex-girlfriend of the lead singer of the band. It helps even more that the band members have been dead for over a year.

Apparently, Romero has become drunk with power and success. That, or he owes someone a big favor. Regardless, if this is what he's going to be doing now that the ...of the Dead series appears to be over, I think we can all agree that Land of the Dead needs to be cherished--if only so that we may throw Diamond Dead down the memory hole.

Well then, onto the actual trailer. Unfortunately, this is one of those trailers that shows more clips from Romero's previous zombie films than his new one; I suppose the studio felt it necessary to give evidence to back up its claim that he is "legendary." Apparently, Land takes place sometime after Night of the Living Dead: the world has been overrun by the Republicans zombies, and the last remaining humans are holed up in a fortress of solitude walled, prison-like city. The zombies also have apparently been "evolving," to the point where they can construct rudimentary pipe bombs and are adept at military pincer attacks. They also seem to be amphibious in this iteration, but seeing as how this is a movie where Dennis Hopper is in charge, we're obviously supposed to suspend disbelief.

Ultimately, the trailer devolves into a typical horror-movie-with-lots-of-fast-cuts-and-scary-noises-and-explosions trailer, which is a little sad because the trailer showed so much potential when it was only showing clips from the previous ...of the Dead films. It's got its moments, but in the end this trailer just doesn't cut the mustard. You'd be better served eating a large bowl of Hagan Das and watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.