LAND OF THE DEAD 2005

Buoyed by the success of the 2004 remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD & the ever so clever SHAUN OF THE DEAD, Studio Execs sniffed even more blood money to be made out of the now revitalised Zombie genre and picked up the phone to Romero. His not so triumphant return was in the form of LAND OF THE DEAD, a well produced but ultimately flawed take on his previous success.

When writing LAND OF THE DEAD the big man ignored two fundamentals of a good Zombie yarn. By populating “THE CITY” with thousands of intelligent individuals, a well equipped army and a natural sea defense he made life very difficult for hapless Zombies looking for a bite of lunch. So, to compensate, he gave the lead Zombie the ability to think which enabled him to lead an army of the undead into the city parameters where chaos ensued.

This movies biggest failure is its lack of solitude and desperation and by giving a Zombie the ability of rational thought there just isn’t any sense of the hopelessness that is the bread & butter of any good Zombie flick.

Don’t get me wrong. LAND OF THE DEAD belongs in your collection, you just won’t watch it very often.