 |
I think it’s
safe to say that most people have fears.
Some have them to the point of extreme,
and I guess these could be referred to as
phobias. More often than not, these fears
are about tangible things like heights,
enclosed spaces, snakes, or spiders. Then
there are those of us who have irrational
fears. We fear things that will never, ever
happen. I’m going to confess to having
one of those fears, and up until this point
I’ve only admitted it to my wife.
I have an irrational fear of being attacked
and eaten by the undead.
On the surface, this might seem silly, but
let me tell you there are times when I find
myself driving down country roads in the
middle of the night and in my mind’s
eye I can see zombies shambling up from
the sides of the road. I even start making
conscious decisions of what I would do if
they in fact DID start shambling towards
me. (Speeding up comes to mind…).
Sometimes, when I get up in the middle of
the night to get a bottle for the baby,
I look out through our sliding glass doors
to the field behind the house and again,
my imagination runs a bit wild.
|
Now, I realize I will never have to deal with
real zombies, shambling or otherwise, so the fear
does not get so bad as to lose sleep or hide under
the bed. Though I will admit to locking the bedroom
door from time to time, but this is more to give
would-be robbers a harder time getting in while
I’m sleeping (uh-huh, sure…). The
really funny thing is how I’ve dealt with
this irrational fear over the years. First and
foremost is that I watch any movies that I can
on the subject (this way I can learn what to do
and what not to do to survive a zombie attack),
and have spent a good number of years working
as an effects artist in the haunted house business.
Yep, that’s right. I surround myself with
all manner of creatures, monsters and zombies
on nearly a daily basis. Go figure. Of course,
if any of the guys I work with read this review
and learn of my fear, my life will become a living
hell. (So, if any of you ARE reading this, I’m
just making it up for the sake of this review.)
What all of this has to do with the new theatrical
release of “Land of the Dead” is that
by writing about this, it not only allows me a
cathartic release of this otherwise secret fear
but lets you know that I’m somewhat of an
expert on the subject of the undead. When I tell
you that “Land of the Dead” is one
of the best zombie movies (right after “Dawn
of the Dead” – the Romero version)
ever made, there’s a real good chance you’ll
lend some credence to my opinion.
I’ve long been a fan of the work of George
Romero. His ‘Dead” trilogy still stands
as the benchmark of the genre, and makes Romero
the undisputed king of horror film fans everywhere.
The original 1968 release of “Night of the
Living Dead” was a groundbreaking film for
the horror genre in that it not only pushed the
envelope of what could be shown on camera, but
also refrained from having the typical Hollywood
ending where the ‘good guys’ win.
For the time it was made, it was considered shocking
and horrific, and in spite of its age and low
budget status still gives some people the willies
even to this day. Even more shocking to audiences
at the time was it had an African American as
the main lead. Long thought to be a bit of a social
commentary on Romero’s part, he still claims
that he chose the actor for no other reason than
he was the best actor he had at the time.
Romero didn’t really set out to be a horror
film director, but with the release eleven years
later of “Dawn of the Dead”, that
pretty much did it. Again Romero went against
the Hollywood grain by refusing to make cuts to
the film so that it would get an ‘R’
rating. He instead chose to release the film Unrated,
which was often a death knell for a lot movies
back in the 1970s as most theatres wouldn’t
even play them. As a matter of fact, when I saw
the premiere in El Paso (Texas), the theatre would
only show it as a midnight movie.
If I can share another little personal side note,
I was into the haunted house thing even back then
while in high school. I went to the premiere with
a friend, both of us dressed up as zombies. We
sat outside the theatre box office and fought
over and chewed on a couple of fake arms that
had been filled with chopped up hot dogs and ketchup.
The theatre manager loved it, some of the patrons…
didn’t. We of course went into the theatre
a little later and watched the movie, much to
the discomfort of the couple we sat next to. (Hee
Hee).
Though I was already a fan of horror films (and
secretly ‘zombie-phobic’), seeing
“Dawn of the Dead” made an impact
on me with not only it’s visceral imagery,
but its underlying social commentary. The special
effects by Tom Savini were absolutely the grossest
I had seen at the time, and I just ate it all
up (both figuratively and literally). I set out
to learn as much as I could about creating these
types of effects, and have fortunately had the
opportunity to parlay that education into some
really fun part and full time jobs. But what really
set the film apart for me, was the social commentary
I mentioned. The fact that Romero chose to set
the main part of the movie in a mall really brought
it home. Whether or not he meant to, Romero’s
vision of zombies lumbering about the mall is
an image that I still carry with me every time
I walk into one. And thanks to the ‘mall
zombies’ I always find when I go there,
I don’t have to use much of my imagination
to revisit the movie. Seriously, check it out
the next time you go to the mall. Just look at
all the vacant stares and aimless sense of motion.
It’s eerie.
In 1985, Romero returned with what was to be the
end of the trilogy, “Day of the Dead.”
This time, the protagonists come in the form of
a group of military officers and scientists who
have taken up shelter in an underground bunker.
While it was not overall as great as “Dawn…”,
“Day of the Dead” still managed to
whip up not only some good frights and awesome
gore scenes, but an interesting plot line involving
the evolution and learning capabilities of the
zombies. Taken as a whole, all three movies are
gems amongst the zombie genre and have inspired
whole generations of filmmakers, most notably
the geniuses behind "Shaun
of the Dead.”
Since that time, fans have rallied for Romero
to continue his series, but it just never seemed
to come about. Romero found success in other highly
underrated films like “Monkey Shines”
and “The Dark Half”, but none of these
films ever gained the status of the ‘Dead’
trilogy. A few years back, word started spreading
that Romero was interested in revisiting the genre
and had a script ready for “Dead Reckoning”,
which was to be the zombie movie to end all zombie
movies. Unfortunately, nobody seemed interested
in investing in the film. The studios all turned
it down figuring the genre was all but dead (no
pun intended…).
As horror movies started a major comeback a couple
of years ago, Universal took notice. But did they
back Romero’s big return to directing? No,
they instead turned over a bunch of cash to some
hack to do a remake of “Dawn of the Dead.”
Fans were incensed, and admittedly so was I. For
months, the internet was abuzz with all manner
of insults towards this remake, after all why
do a remake when you can have an all-new feature,
directed by the guy who started it all?
Granted, attitudes did begin to change as audiences
saw the remake of “Dawn of the Dead.”
As far as zombie movies go, it was actually a
pretty well made and well thought out film. However
I would have still rather had the producers of
that film name it something totally different
and not try to ride the coattails of the success
of the original. (I actually thought that instead
of re-using the original tag line “When
there is no more room in Hell, the Dead will walk
the Earth”, they should have used “When
there is no more creativity in Hollywood, the
Hacks will re-write the Classics.”)
But then something odd happened. Romero was able
to get some foreign financing to make his film,
now titled “Land of the Dead” and
due to the phenomenal success of the “Dawn
of the Dead” remake, Universal opted to
jump on the bandwagon to promote and release the
film. A little hypocritical if you ask me, but
what the hell… at least the film got made
and is getting released.
As word spread about this new film, anticipation
grew, certainly within this critic. It became
one of the films I was most looking forward to
all year, so when I found out I was going to see
an early screening of “Land of the Dead”,
I waited for the night with a mixture of gleeful
anticipation and a little bit of hesitation. The
hesitation only caused by the fear that it would
not live (die?) up to my expectations or instead
start off a whole new slew of sleepless nights.
For the few of you who don’t have any idea
what the premise of “Land of the Dead”
is, in a nutshell it follows the natural progression
of the overall plot set down by the previous three
films. Here we find the world has been pretty
much overrun by the undead while the living are
holed up in some of the larger cities. The film
focuses on one of these cities, which is surrounded
on two sides by water, while a guarded electrified
fence protects the third side. In the center of
the city stands a tall business tower called "Fiddler's
Green" which houses the ‘haves’,
while the ‘have-nots’ live on the
streets and survive by selling whatever they have
to offer. At the top of the tower sits a corporate
head honcho by the name of Kaufman (Dennis Hopper),
who makes sure the ‘haves’ live in
the lap of luxury.
Simon Baker stars as Riley, the head of a group
of procurers whose job it is to go out into the
‘wild’ and bring back food and water.
The main members of his team are made up of Cholo
(John Leguizamo) and Charlie (Robert Joy). Their
mode of transportation is a super fortified armory
on wheels called Dead Reckoning. Cholo has agendas
of his own however, and serves only himself, while
Riley’s first priority is the people of
the city.
The area outside the cities has become the hunting
grounds for the undead and here is where we learn
they are evolving. The theory that the zombies
might be able to reconnect with certain instincts
and memories, which started with fan-fave character
Bub in “Day of the Dead”, is carried
even further here with the film’s main zombie
character Big Daddy (Eugene Clark). By his clothes
it is obvious that Big Daddy’s profession
was that of a gas station attendant and mechanic
and when we first see him he walks out of a station
and readies himself to pump gas when another zombie
steps on the dinger. As his character ‘progresses’,
we see him show remorse over the ‘death’
of one of his brethren, ending the ‘suffering’
of a dying zombie, and learning to use a gun.
I don’t want to get any more into the plot
of the film, because to be honest I was very surprised
how much of a plot there was. I was concerned
that “Land of the Dead” would be no
more than a gore fest, and though that wouldn’t
have gotten any complaints out of me, my entertainment
level was heightened by the fact that the plot
was so different than what I expected. As for
the gore level, there was certainly enough to
go around. Fortunately the film chose to keep
its ‘R’ rating, so there was plenty
of neck-biting, arm-chomping, and gut-eating in
all its wonderful glory (gory?).
Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger from KNB effects
did a spectacular job with all the gore and the
corpse make-up effects. I was especially glad
to see that very little CGI was used for these
effects; instead the guys fell back on good-old
fashioned latex work. The zombies, for the most
part, looked terrific. The only place in “Land
of the Dead” where their work didn’t
do it for me was on Big Daddy’s makeup.
Instead of a slowly rotting corpse, he had all
sorts of ridges on his face and really bad teeth
making him look more like a “Buffy the Vampire
Slayer” vampire reject. (This makeup style
was also unfortunately used on makeup guru Tom
Savini’s cameo in the film).
Of course, the social commentary that Romero is
famous for is present, giving us the impression
that after a disaster of this proportion, there
will still be corporate or government giants who
will take care of their own, leaving the rest
of us to starve. There is also a little bit of
a ‘George W’ joke, with Kaufman yelling
into the phone that he doesn’t deal with
terrorists. There is also a scene that shows some
of the ‘uses’ for imprisoned zombies
that make one wonder if we are any better than
they are.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a
particular stand-out in the cast, who might otherwise
be looked over. Pedro Miguel Arce plays Pillsbury,
one of Kaufman’s elite soldiers whom Riley
is forced to team with. His role is fairly small,
but what few lines he has steals each and every
scene he’s in. Also be sure to keep any
eye out for cameos by Simon Pegg (writer/star
of “Shaun of the Dead” and Edgar Wright
(writer/director of “Shaun of the Dead”)
as zombies in a scene where live people can have
their pictures taken with zombies.
I wouldn’t call “Land of the Dead”
George Romero’s masterpiece, simply because
I feel that all four of his films have to be taken
as a whole to be considered as such. However,
as a stand alone film, I definitely consider it
to be amongst the best of the recent slew of zombie
movies because of its plot, pacing and attention
to the gory details that horror fans want to see.
Romero has expressed an interest in making more
films in the series, and I for one, hope that
“Land of the Dead” will do decent
enough to allow him the opportunity to do so.
(BTW - on an additional little side note about
Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's cameos, if you take
a really close look at the movie poster above.
Just to the leftof Big Daddy (front and center
zombie) is Edgar Wright as a zombie, and two heads
to the right... Simon Pegg. And if you look slightly
to the upper left area past Edgar's face, you'll
see Tom Savini!!)
Directed by: George Romero
Starring: Simon Baker, Jon Leguizamo, Asia Argento,
Robert Joy, Dennis Hopper
Studio: Universal
Website
Website
We'll give Land of the Dead an A.
|
