Slutty Argento Vs The Living Dead

No one ever thought it would happen, but nearly 20 years after the completion of his ‘dead’ trilogy, director George A Romero returned to the zombie apocalypse one more time with Land Of The Dead. Backed by a mythos that had transcended into the mainstream consciousness, Romero was able to secure a decent budget from Universal Pictures for his fist studio (and only) studio release of the franchise. The result is as smart and as splattery as one would have hoped.

Pushing even further into the future, mankind has drawn a line against the masses of zombies in the city of Pittsburgh, protected by the river system that surrounds it. In his most obvious, but also arguably his most effective piece of social satire yet, Romero establishes different classes of inhabitant to this far future America; the team mass of brainless zombies outside the cities, the poor, urban city folk struggling to scrape an existence and a small but privileged wealthy class living in the skyscraper at the city’s core. It’s smart, subversive stuff playing off the fear and corruption existing in a post-9/11 world.

Visually the film pushes into Mad Max territory with the centrepiece vehicle, the Dead Reckoning, and the action is on a scale never seen before in this series. It’s drenched in atmosphere, has underwater zombies (cool), memorable performances from Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo and Robert Joy as well as the never sluttier Asia Argento.

What else could a grown zombie fan need?