Land of the Dead

Land of the Dead
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	George A. Romero
Written by	George A. Romero
Produced by	Mark Canton Bernie Goldmann Peter Grunwald
Starring	Simon Baker John Leguizamo Dennis Hopper Asia Argento
Cinematography	Miroslaw Baszak
Edited by	Michael Doherty
Music by	Reinhold Heil Johnny Klimek
Production companies	Universal Pictures Atmosphere Entertainment MM
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	June 18, 2005 (2005-06-18) (CineVegas) June 24, 2005 (2005-06-24) (United States and Canada) August 10, 2005 (2005-08-10) (France)
Running time	93 minutes
Countries	Template:Film Canada Template:Film France Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$15 million[1]
Box office	$46,770,602[2]

Land of the Dead (also known as George A. Romero's Land of the Dead) is a 2005 horror film by director George A. Romero, the fourth of Romero's six Living Dead movies. It is preceded by Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, and succeeded by Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. It was released in 2005 and became a success, grossing over $40 million, and had a budget of $16 million, the highest in the series.^[1][2]

The story of Land of the Dead deals with a zombie assault on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a feudal like government exists. The survivors in the film have fled to the city. The city is protected on three sides by three rivers and on the other by an electric barricade.

Released on June 24, 2005, in North America, Land of the Dead received mostly positive reviews from film critics.

This is the first (and so far only) "Dead" (not counting remakes) film released by a major film company, Universal Studios handles distribution

Plot

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A catastrophe destroyed much of human civilization, with the newly dead, for an unknown reason, coming back to life. Years later, there are very few living humans left. Many have fled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a feudal-like government has taken hold. Bordered on three sides by rivers and on the fourth by an electric fence, the city has become a sanctuary. Fiddler's Green, is where the rich and powerful live in luxury, while the rest of the population just gets by. Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) rules the city with overwhelming firepower.

Kaufman financed the construction of Dead Reckoning, a heavily armored vehicle that can travel through the zombie infested areas with ease. Armed with remote-controlled heavy machine guns and video cameras, Dead Reckoning primarily functions as a moving fireworks launch base: zombies are fascinated by fireworks and will stare at them, ignoring anything ahppening around them. Riley Denbo (Simon Baker), both the designer and commander of Dead Reckoning, has recently retired. Unlike Kaufman, Denbo is respected for his work in protecting the city from danger, as well as bringing critical food and medical supplies.

Denbo discovers that Chihuahua (Phil Fondacaro), is entertianing his bars patrons by trying to feed hooker Slack (Asia Argento) to some zombies. Angery, Denbo and Charlie (Robert Joy) save Slack and kill a man in the process. The three are soon arrested and taken to jail, where Slack reveals she was being executed on Kaufman's orders, because she works for Mulligan (Bruce McFee). Mulligan, a former co-worker of Riley's, has turned against Kaufman and is trying to gather rebels among the poor.

Meanwhile, Cholo DeMora (John Leguizamo), second in command of the Dead Reckoning, after being turned down by Kaufman from getting an apartment in Fiddler's Green, has gone renegade and Cholo is out to even the score. He threatens to destroy Fiddler's Green with the Dead Reckoning, which he hijacks along with Pretty Boy (Joanne Boland), Mouse (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), Anchor (Tony Munch), and Foxy (Tony Nappo). Zombies attack as he is leaving, but Cholo does not care and orders that they drive away without intervening. Kaufman turns to Riley to stop Cholo. He is assigned three other officers, Manolete (Sasha Roiz), Motown (Krista Bridges), and Pillsbury (Pedro Miguel Arce). Denbo has a tracking device to help locate "Dead Reckoning." He takes only Charlie, leaving the other three behind. Motown wants to stop him, but Pillsbury knocks her out and escorts Slack as she follows Riley. When Riley finally catches Cholo, he is almost killed. The crew is caught in the crossfire, including Slack, who goes to help Riley. Motown arrives but is attacked by a zombie. That provides a distraction and Riley is ble to shut down Dead Reckoning's weapons systems. Riley then convinces Cholo to allow him to take Dead Reckoning and just drive north. Cholo instead takes the Woody, an old station wagon with no roof, and goes west. A short time later Cholo is bitten by a zombie. He decides to go back to the city to finish off Kauffman.

Meanwhile, zombies seem to mimic their past lives and a leader has risen; "Big Daddy" (Eugene Clark), gas station attedant who comes out to the pumps every time a zombie causes the bell to ring. Unusually aware and intelligent, Big Daddy directs his fellow zombies to use firearms and overcome the human defenses. The zombies are beginning to learn, adapt, and even to communicate with primitive moans and grunts. Big Daddy leads the zombies in an assault on the human city when he realizes that the zombies can simply walk on the bottom of the riverbed to reach the humans. The carnage takes place at Fiddler's Green. Kaufman witnesses his kingdom downfall as the zombies storm the city. The humans discover that the electric fence used to keep the zombies out now keep them in.

Big Daddy follows the fleeing Kaufman to an underground garage where a Lincoln Town Car to escape in. Big Daddy sees Kaufman's car next to a gas pump and begins pumping gas into through the car's broken windshield. He then simply walks out of the garage. Cholo, now reanimated, confronts Kaufamn in the garage and tries to use a speargun but he discards it and bites Kaufman. Outside Big Daddy rolls a burning tire toward Kaufman's gasoline-soaked vehicle. It explodes, incinerating both Kaufman and the undead Cholo.

Meanwhile, Denbo and Dead Reckoning have fought to free the inhabitants of the city. At the electric fence, the crew discovers the impoverished and elite alike are now walking dead. The crew then finds that some of the city's inhabitants had followed Mulligan, who led them to a safe shelter elsewhere and have survived.

After the attack, it seems like most of the population of the city have survived. Pretty Boy, gets a clear shot at Big Daddy as the zombies leave, but Riley orders her to stop and tells her "they're just looking for a place to go." Denbo and his friends leave the city with the Dead Reckoning, striking out for the north. As they leave, they fire all of Dead Reckoning's fireworks in celebration.

Cast

• Simon Baker as Riley Denbo
• John Leguizamo as Cholo DeMora
• Dennis Hopper as Paul Kaufman
• Asia Argento as Slack
• Robert Joy as Charlie Houk
• Eugene Clark as Big Daddy
• Joanne Boland as Pretty Boy
• Tony Nappo as Foxy
• Jennifer Baxter as Number 9
• Boyd Banks as Butcher
• Jasmin Geljo as Tambourine Man
• Maxwell McCabe-Lokos as Mouse
• Tony Munch as Anchor
• Shawn Roberts as Mike
• Pedro Miguel Arce as Pillsbury
• Sasha Roiz as Manolete
• Krista Bridges as Motown
• Alan van Sprang as Brubaker
• Phil Fondacaro as Chihuahua
• Bruce McFee as Mulligan
• Earl Pastko as Roach
• Peter Outerbridge as Styles
• Gene Mack as Knipp
• Simon Pegg as Photo Booth Zombie
• Edgar Wright as Photo Booth Zombie
• Tom Savini as Machete Zombie
• Gregory Nicotero as Bridgekeeper Zombie

Production

Earlier script titles included Twilight of the Dead, Dead City and Dead Reckoning (the same as the military vehicle used in the film). Romero said in an interview [1] that one of the first potential film studios (20th Century Fox) wanted the film to be titled Night of the Living Dead. He refused, wanting to use the title Dead Reckoning, and the studio then wanted to title it Night of the Living Dead: Dead Reckoning. It turned out that Fox sought to own the rights to Night of the Living Dead, and Romero decided not to do business with them.

The film draws on some elements from the original script for Day of the Dead.

Filming took place in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.^[3]

This film was cast by veteran Hollywood Casting Director Marci Liroff.

Rating

It is the first movie in the series to receive an MPAA rating for its theatrical release. Romero had said for years that he would film two versions; an R rated cut for the theatres and first DVD, and an unrated cut for the second DVD release. Both DVDs were released in the U.S. on October 18, 2005. Rumors suggested that Romero shot alternate, less explicit, gore scenes for the theatrical release, but this is not entirely accurate. The more extreme instances of gore (e.g. a woman having her navel piercing graphically torn out by a zombie) were obscured by foreground elements filmed on bluescreen, so that these overlayed elements could be easily removed for the unrated DVD. Other ways to obscure blood in order to get an R-rating were achieved by simply trimming the grislier shots by a few seconds, by digitally repainting blood so that it is more black than red, or by digitally painting the blood out altogether.

The Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario gave both the theatrical version and DVD version a rating of 18A, though it was only given a 13+ rating in Quebec.

In the UK the BBFC gave it a 15 certificate for both the theatrical version and the unrated version. (The UK "Director's Cut" DVD was rated 18 due to extras being rated higher than the feature itself).

In Germany, both the theatrical and unrated versions were rated 18, rendering the purpose of the cut theatrical version largely redundant. As such, only the unrated version was widely available in Germany.

The movie was banned in Ukraine.^[4]

Release

The film was met with positive reviews upon release, the film was released one year after the remake of Dawn of the Dead was released international to cinema. The film grossed over 40 million dollars and is second behind Dawn of the Dead with the highest grossing revenue in the Living Dead series, the two lowest being Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Diary of the Dead (2008).^[2] The film opened the MTV Saturday Horror block on 27 February 2010.^[5]

Reception

Critical response

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four for what he considered its skillful and creative allusions, something that he argued was pervasive among Romero's previous three installments that contained numerous satirical metaphors to the reality of American life. In this installment Ebert noted the similarities between the fireworks mesmerizing the zombies and the shock and awe tactics applied during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the movie's distinction between the rich and poor, those that live in Fiddler's Green and those that live in the slums, something he considered to be Romero's take on the rising gap between rich and poor in America.^[6] Michael Wilmington of Chicago Tribune awarded the film four stars, writing, "It's another hard-edged, funny, playfully perverse and violent exercise in movie fear and loathing, with an increasingly dark take on a world spinning out of control. By now, Romero has become a classicist who uses character and dialogue as much as stomach-turning special effects to achieve his shivers."^[7] The New York Sun declared it "the American movie of the year."^[8]

Several film-makers including Eli Roth and Guillermo del Toro paid tribute to George Romero in a Land of the Dead special. Guillermo del Toro said: "Finally someone was smart enough to realize that it was about time, and gave George the tools. It should be a cause of celebration amongst all of us that Michelangelo has started another ceiling. It's really a momentous occasion ..."^[9]

Overall critical reaction was mostly positive; the film received very favorable reviews from The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Premiere, Variety, Slate and Los Angeles Times. The film earned a 74% positive rating at the Rotten Tomatoes movie-review compilation website (though the "Cream of the Crop" critics' reactions were slightly more mixed, giving the film a 68% rating overall).^[10]

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Land of the Dead.

• The Official Land of the Dead French Website
• The Official Land of the Dead Website from Universal
• Land of the Dead at IMDb
• Land of the Dead at AllMovie
• Land of the Dead review at Internal Bleeding