Land Of The Dead

Touting 2005's Land Of The Dead, George A. Romero's dark tale of the Zombie Armageddon, as "his ultimate zombie masterpiece" (or so boasts the marketing effort) is a bit of a stretch, though for fans of (somewhat) thoughtful horror, this one is still fun and in the Romero tradition. It follows Romero's brilliantly simple classic Night Of The Living Dead (1968), the then-bold indictment of consumerism Dawn Of The Dead (1978) and the underrated Day Of The Dead (1985). Here, the living dead have inexplicably started to think and have begun hunting the living holed up in Fiddler's Green, a fortified skyscraper city run by an opportunistic businessman, played by Dennis Hopper. Soldier Simon Baker and bad girl/horror legacy Asia Argento (Romero credits her father Dario Argento with the genesis of Dawn Of The Dead) keep the action moving, with John Leguizamo as Hopper's plodding guy Friday with dreams of living the high(rise) life. Eugene Clark, as the lead zombie, a former gas station owner named Big Daddy, has the hardest job here, conveying primal emotion and intent without speaking a word (think Bub from Day Of The Dead, built like a bulldozer.) Thanks to some great and ghastly makeup by longtime accomplice Greg Nicotero, a fellow Pittsburgh native who, as a youngster, actually met Romero while he was writing Dawn in Rome, does not skimp on the gory details. Still, it has been so long since Romero has worked in this genre that as competent as the film is, it seems like more of a Romero tribute than a fresh take on the genre that he is credited with redefining almost four decades ago.

 Also on DVD shelves this week is the Romero-sanctioned sequel, Day Of The Dead 2: Contagium. More than a fan film but much less than what fans of Romero and true zombie horror might expect, it gets a little deeper into the whole alien genesis of the zombie plague. In the supplementals and commentary track, writer/co-director Ana Clavell and producer/co-director James Dudelson (who are also making Creepshow 3) are not very clear if this is taking place in an alternate timeline or if the events follow Day Of The Dead. The pacing is OK, as they gradually elevate the over-the-top carnage and flesh-chomping mayhem as the story unfolds. However, like a fan film, the most glaring of flaws is the acting. Even in the original Day, grand ham Joe Pilato played his part as head of the anti-zombie squad with a level of consistency. Here, in what might also be titled Cuckoo's Nest Of The Living Dead (in that it takes place in the "Romero Wing" of a psych facility), the performances range from high-school-drama-production-bad to summer-stock-dinner-theatre-bad. Expect extra attention heaped on both Day movies when Dawn remaker Zack Snyder bows with his Day remake in 2006. Don't, however, expect to figure into your budget the cost of buying Contagium (unless you're an obsessive completist), as it's a rental, at best.

Another actual tribute, Undead, from Australia's Spierig Brothers (Michael and Peter) is also on DVD now. With a healthy tongue-in-rotting-cheek nod to all the trappings of zombiedom, this is a hyperkinetic ode to Uncle George by way of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy and Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. The Spierigs' alien invasion plot is what War of the Worlds may have looked like if the guys from Shaun of the Dead had a go at it.

Speaking of those guys, there is a nice featurette on the Land Of The Dead DVD detailing the trip to Pittsburgh Canada that Shaun creators Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright made in order to make cameos as zombies for their fearless leader. Altogether, there is about an hour's worth of mostly-good bonus material which gives a nice behind-the-scenes look at what will hopefully not be the last in the series from the indie vanguard.

As far as additional scenes put back in this unrated version of the R-rated theatrical cut, the supplemental material goes into it in detail (all four minutes of it), as does Romero, producer Peter Grunwald and editor Michael Doherty on the insightful and seldom-silent commentary track. The one restored scene of note is of a suicide victim coming back to life and attacking his family after they cut him down from the light fixture from which he hanged himself. Most of the rest of the additional running time is extended shots of mostly viscera.

One thing that bugs the hell out of me is when some self-styled film scholar latches onto a point he read or heard discussed in educated company, and claims it as his own, usually flogging it until it is dead. Remember that jackass with the ponytail in Good Will Hunting? Guys like that. Guys who will glean a piece of insight from the commentary track on a DVD, knowing full well that most people do not listen to the commentary track before returning the disc to Lackluster or Follywood. When you catch someone running down the list of Romero's undead tetralogy, detailing Night's rumination on racism, Dawn's consumer hell, Day's nihilist manifesto and Land's flaming of the Bush administration, call him on it. Same thing with the next unoriginal bastard who claims authorship of his watered-down regurgitation of a lesson from high school history class about the political parallels between L. Frank's Baum's The Wizard Of Oz and the political climate of the U.S. at the dawn of the 20th century. He, too, shall be savagely dope-slapped.

Hide and Creep, a zombie flick in the, um...vein of Shaun Of The Dead, wears its ultra-low budget as a badge of pride, compensating greatly with a wickedly funny script that maintains its energy throughout. In a Clerks-inspired moment, the movie opens with a video store employee (director/producer Chuck Hartsell) schooling a customer on the phone in the finer points of the zombie movie genre. Self-aware but never snarky, Hartsell's world, in which the undead are afraid of the dark and recently deceased lesbian strippers neck on stage, is a nice addition to a genre in real need of a Buffy-style humor transfusion.

Failing in the humor department is a pair of sequels to the long-stalled Return Of The Living Dead franchise. Both Necropolis (part 4) and Rave To The Grave (part 5) aired recently on Sci-Fi, and while neither are much better than one might expect from the Giant Reptile Movie Network, their websites link to an exceptionally clear Genealogy Of The Living Dead. Shot entirely in Eastern Europe (like Bruce Campbell's just-released mixed-bag directorial debut The Man With The Screaming Brain), both movies are pretty sloppy and poorly written, and won't leave fans of the series hissing the catchphrase, "More brains!"

Horror fan Dean Lachiusa took Romero's low-budget horror masterpiece Night Of The Living Dead and re-edited it into something he calls The Survivor's Cut. Completely legal, as the 1968 film is in the public domain, Lachiusa has tightened things up some, added some backstory and created some simple but effective visuals, and the result is nowhere nearly as blasphemous as NOTLD producer/co-writer John Russo's heinous 30th anniversary recut. The Survivor's Cut is available for viewing completely free-of-charge at Lachiusa's website.

With an altogether different take on the grand return of the recently deceased is They Came Back, also on DVD. It posits that all at once, 70 million of them return en masse, though without the prerequisite hunger for human brains or even a hint of unsightly decomp. The first directorial effort of ultra-sharp Time Out writer Robin Campillo, the film explores with considerable insight many of the societal logistics of reintegrating these returnees. Campillo builds the tension with great skill, though the payoff is very European (as the film was made in France) and may not rub right American audiences seeking satisfying irony (or a cathartic blood feast).

Of course, this is not an all-inclusive dissertation. Whatever movies I failed to mention and whatever points I was off on, I'm sure y'all will send me to (ghoul) school...