ome time ago, the dead rose. They now dominate the country, driving the last surviving humans into a fortified city. It is from here that Riley (Baker), the dim-witted Charlie (Joy), Cholo (Leguizamo) and their crew of mercenaries emerge during the night on retrieval missions. They take their weapons, their motorcycles and the armored assault vehicle Dead Reckoning into the wasteland, where they seek food, medicines—and, occasionally, luxuries.
Vigilance is key: One slip and the dead will attack, seeking human flesh.
Back in the city, life goes on. In the sleek tower of Fiddler's Green, the oligarchs of the old order continue to carve out a life of privilege, overseen by Kaufman (Hopper), the unscrupulous millionaire who controls the city from his penthouse aerie.
But on the streets, the less fortunate scrabble for existence any way they can. Life here is hard, and a few disgruntled souls wonder why a handful live in luxury while the rest barely survive.
But Kaufman doesn't brook dissent. When Slack (Argento), a hooker and former commando, gets in his way, he puts her in a cage with two zombies. The crowd bets on which one will get her. But Riley intervenes, saving her. Both end up in Kaufman's slammer.
Meanwhile, Cholo, who has been running unsavory errands for Kaufman, finally works up the nerve to ask Kaufman to let him into Fiddler's Green. But Kaufman rebuffs him.
Outside the city, a hulking zombie named Big Daddy (Eugene Clark) begins to have awareness. The other zombies start to follow him as he shambles toward the city, following the bright lights.
That night, Cholo gets his crew together. Since Kaufman won't give him what he wants, he'll have to take it. He commandeers the Dead Reckoning and points its missiles at Fiddler's Green. His demand is simple: millions of dollars, or Fiddler's Green goes down. He gives Kaufman until midnight.
Kaufman has no choice: He dispatches Riley, Charlie and Slack to stop Cholo. But is there enough time? And what about Big Daddy and the living dead?
This Dead rises and shines
In Land of the Dead, writer/director Romero returns to the zombie genre he invented way back in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead, and it's a welcome comeback. Two decades have passed since Romero's last zombie movie, 1985's Day of the Dead, and in that intervening time, a new generation of filmmakers has reinvigorated the genre: Zombies run (28 Days Later), zombies are funny (Shaun of the Dead), zombies even get a makeover (last year's remake of Romero's 1978 Dawn of the Dead).
But nothing can match the originals, and Romero's Land shows why he's still the best of them all. His filmmaking style hasn't changed much since the 1980s—there are mercifully few MTV-influenced techniques, and the movie unfolds with deliberate pacing. But he understands that a successful zombie movie has to be more than simply a gory scarefest. Where the previous installments were metaphors of their time, Land can be read as a not-terribly-subtle satire of George W. Bush's America at the dawn of the 21st century, and it's not a pretty sight.
But Romero shows flashes of originality and wit throughout. His characters may be genre archetypes, but they have enough individual personality to make them spark, particularly when actors such as Leguizamo and Hopper are allowed to improvise (one of the movie's funniest lines, mouthed by Hopper as he picks his nose, was cooked up on set, Romero says). There's lots of humor, lots of incendiary banter and even a few sight gags.
Romero also gives each of the key zombies something resembling a character, making them more than simply flesh-eating monsters and even managing to elicit sympathy for them.
But don't think Romero has mellowed with age (he's 65). He stages sequences of extreme zombie action and mayhem that push the boundaries of acceptable screen gore. And, with the help of special-effects makeup supervisor Greg Nicotero and a crew of skilled craftsmen, Romero comes up with stuff no fan of the genre is likely to have seen before (two words: Pez priest), which he stages with great glee and gusto. No mean feat, and definitely not for the faint of heart.
Beyond the gore, though, Romero remains a master at building suspense and dread, which so many modern horror films lack.
