Land of the Dead (2005) Revisited (Review)

The living dead have taken over the world, and the last humans live in a walled city as they come to grips with the situation. But how long will it remain a safe haven? 

At the time unjustifiably panned by many George A. Romero fans and critics, horror filmmaking legend Romero’s grander-scale zombie instalment initially had a rough reception. It may lack the indie-feel roughness of his previous zombie outbreaks, especially the gritty tone and product of its time ‘78’s Dawn of the Dead. That said, it avoids Diary’s shaky cam; the late great Romero couldn’t win—every time he pandered to fans’ whims, he seemingly shot himself in the foot. 

Nevertheless, hindsight is 20/20 Romero and clearly works best when he's left to just make his movies. What Land delivers is an ominous tone, a strong story, and great performances, notably from Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, and the double-crossing Dennis Hopper, who delivers some memorable one-liners. Both Asia Argento (Dario Argento’s daughter) as "Slack" and Robert Joy as Charlie are notable. Joanne Boland's "Pretty Boy" deserves a mention along with Sasha Roiz and Krista Bridges. 

Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek’s excellent haunting music score is fitting. Aside from some iffy CGI blood, there some fantastic practical and visual effects. Romero ticks all the zombie boxes with this movie. There’s action, gore, jump scares on a large scale. Although some of the themes, like “putting out the trash,” could have been explored further, there are some visually striking set pieces, great zombie ideas, and more. Romero offers an abundance of memorable undead characters including Eugene Clark as Big Daddy, Boyd Banks' Butcher,  Jennifer Baxter as blonde messed up face Zombie Number 9 and Jasmin Geljo as Tambourine zombie to name a few. 

Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Tom Savini cameo,  Romero throws in plenty of horror nods,  including An American Werewolf in London’s Gerald Bringsley subway man (Michael Carter) lookalike. With Romero’s staple social commentary, here he offers a strong racial context and subtext relating to the debate about immigration reform, land ownership, and development. 

Overall, Land is worth watching and gets better with age —it’s dead good.