Back from the dead

Noel Vera

I think it's safe to say George A. Romero's "Land of the Dead"
doesn't live up to the previous three zombie films that made him
famous--it doesn't have the nightmarish black-and-white verite of
the now-classic "Night of the Living Dead;" it recycles to lesser
effect the consumer satire of "Dawn of the Dead" (somehow zombies
wandering a mall is funnier than perfectly healthy human beings
doing the same, no matter how closely said humans are supposed to
represent complacent Middle America); and I think it's a reduction
and redundancy to give us class wars, no matter how ferociously
fought, when "Day of the Dead" (my favorite of his zombie flicks)
was already playing endgame with the apocalypse.

It also doesn't help that the film lacks Tom Savini's touch--he for
one glorious moment plays a machete-wielding zombie in the picture,
but otherwise doesn't fiddle around with the makeup. Savini is a
combat veteran, and brought his experience with battle wounds to his
horrific zombie makeup; the prosthetics here and various wounds
inflicted on humans are varied and inventive enough, but don't have
the firsthand realism or flair of Savini's work.

That all said, it's nice to see the master rear up one more time
from the land of development limbo to show us how a zombie movie
should be done, upstart whippersnappers be damned. Romero eschews
this newfangled fast-moving zombie nonsense knowing that a zombie
isn't some hyped-up human on drugs (that's a different genre
altogether, something "28 Days," which I otherwise didn't like, at
least acknowledged), but a dead person--someone who has suffered
enough cellular damage overall that vital processes have ceased; you
don't expect someone like that to suddenly rear up and sprint like a
quarterback. More, those fast-moving zombies seem to try so hard;
they seem anxious lest their prey escape. Romero's zombies suffer no
such neuroses; they shuffle ever forward, secure in their knowledge
that no matter how fast you run, no matter how thoroughly you hide,
they will someday catch up with you…

It's not just the well-adjusted flesh-eaters; Romero actually knows
how to direct thriller sequences, using simple camera setups and a
precise but not strobelike editing to enhance the action, not chop
it up Black and Decker style into generic effluvium. He knows how to
sustain a shot, stretching the suspense to almost unbearable length;
he also knows how to use silence and the well-timed pause (instead
of a really loud rock score), to allow us to strain our ears and
listen for shuffling movement, letting our overworked imagination do
most of the work for him. This is filmmaking so old-fashioned it
seems refreshing, even revolutionary: imagine, a horror director who
didn't start out in commercials or music videos!

Beyond the anachronistic film style, there's the allegorical element-
-something I suspect these younger horrormeister's don't really care
about, much less know how to accomplish. Romero keeps the metaphors
fluid and not too blatant; they're there for you to read, but he
doesn't insist because otherwise the film would read like a
political tract, and probably implode from the dead weight (it has
to work as a horror thriller, first). The difference between living
and dead here has come to the point that it resembles the difference
between inhabitants of America's major cities and the rest of the
world. The zombies don't just represent some parody of humanity,
they are humanity, or at least its underprivileged dregs; the
hunters and gatekeepers who hover around the edges of the privileged
class--represented here by the inhabitants of "Fiddler's Green," the
ultimate in gated communities--are collaborators who help keep the
dead (read: the underprivileged) at bay and exploited.

Finally, as with the final passages of "Day of the Dead," Romero
knows that true and memorable horror is impossible without a moment
of pity or empathy, either for monster or victim (in movies like
the "Dawn of the Dead" remake, the filmmaker seems to look upon his
characters as so many video-game elements, to shoot or be shot at).
There is a similar (if less powerful) moment in "Land," and it
rounds up the number of differences that mark Romero from the rest
of the pack. This I think is the best of this summer's movies,
despite not coming up to the level of the very best of Romero's work-
-which is as much a sad commentary on the quality of this year's
summer flicks as it is a tribute to what Romero still capable of
doing, at the fairly ripe age of 65.

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)