Land of the Dead (spoilers)

Prescreening passes are fun.

Let me start off by saying that I am a big fan of the first three and I own all of them. So does this one live up to the legacy?? Does Romero still have that special magic??? Can anyone ever top Joe Pilato's performance in Day????

YES (except for that last one). I thought it was a grand ole zombie movie, hand-crafted by the Romero we know and love. The movie clocks in at a slim 88 minutes but nothing seems overly rushed (it's a zombie movie; how much character development does it need?!). The storyline is fairly neat and has some obvious political stabs in it, just like it's predecessors. The cast did a fine job; John Leguizamo wasn't too annoying in case anybody was worried. The movie also brought some new ideas into play regarding the zombies themselves, thankfully without any running.

So, how about them zombies?! They looked fairly good, not sure the makeup was really any better than Day though. Seeing this movie did remind me how good Romero is at infusing all of them with their own special personality - they are supposed to be a reflection of ourselves, which this movie gets across very well. As for the gore, the R rating didn't seem to hurt it too much; there were still some nice bits that sent the audience into delighted laughter. Most of the blood splatter from gunfire was CG however, which was a little bit disappointing. Oh, and I was also pleased to see that the Tom Savini cameo got a big reaction from the crowd. That warmed my heart <3

I'll probably end up seeing it again in theaters just to show my support for George and the genre, and I urge you to do the same if you're a fan of the series or zombies in general.

EDIT: In retrospect it was pretty dumb to indicate that I had spoilers, since A) I didn't B) the movie isn't going to be released until Friday, so I don't know who the hell would actually post in this thread until then.

david_a said:

B) the movie isn't going to be released until Friday, so I don't know who the hell would actually post in this thread until then.

OH MY GOD, PRESCREENING PASSES CAN SEE INTO THE FUTURE!

david_a said:

EDIT: In retrospect it was pretty dumb to indicate that I had spoilers, since A) I didn't B) the movie isn't going to be released until Friday, so I don't know who the hell would actually post in this thread until then.

I'm sure people will have it on their computers before then.

EDIT: How'd it compare to the Dawn remake?

Downloading! Bah!!

I haven't bothered seeing the Dawn remake yet, so I couldn't tell you.

I saw it. It sucked, hard.

Wonderful.

Where's the rest of the zombie fans? I know there's a lot of fans of the other movies around here...

i liked it. didn't LOVE it, but i thought it was pretty good. and compared to the DAWN remake it is a beautiful masterpiece of a zombie movie, but i'd say that for pretty much any zombie movie compared to the dawn remake.

I saw LOTD on Friday, too. Man, that shit was incredible. Not brilliant, and no Joe Pilato saying the words "High Filootin'", but still Romero Zombie goodness worthy of the series.

*Slams fist on table* "I'm running this monkey farm now Frankenstein, and I wanna know what the fuck are you doing with my time!"

I thought it was awesome. You go to see a George Romero movie, you're not going for an Oscar worthy preformance from the actors (Although Dennis Hopper can float any movie he's in. This includes Waterworld) Lots of 'smart gore' I suppose, some funny parts, ok story.. the only complaint is the lack of hopelessness the other movies had.

Yeah, after the initial high I would rate it as Good and not Great. It was kinda wierd not seeing actors really hamming it up like Joe I'M RUNNING THIS MONKEY FARM NOW FRANKENSTEIN Pilato, heh. I wonder if it will do well enough in Universal's eyes that they'll give him money for a fifth one...

EDIT: Heh, good timing.

I saw it on Friday. It was pretty good. Not the best zombie movie I've ever seen, but I'd still reccomend it to zombie fans. It seemed to concentrate more on the storyline and the internal struggles of the humans more than straight up zombie killing though.

It came to my small theater in town last friday and I thought it was pretty good. Why everyone was so concerned about money really confused me though :\

The acting was terrible, even King Cooper and Luigi were junk. And I don't know what smart gore is, but if there is such a thing, it's probably not in this movie. The premise of the movie was bad, you would think after some kind of apocalypse that shit would be ruined, instead there's a mega city inhabited by upper class businessmen which is being protected by the lower class, who operate out of a retrofitted garbage truck and park it in their slum when they're finished. The characters were shitty, and there was no rhyme or reason as to why they really did anything. After suffering through all of this, and to be fair the parts where people fight zombies were pretty good, you expect some kind of hollywood showdown but you don't get one, you don't get one because whoever was involved in making this movie had a serious brain fart, and thought it was good already. And that's probably why I think it sucks the most, a movie like this should at least have some kind of wicked awesome climax, but whatever.

this was very good. romero still has what it takes. it's doing well in the box office, so hopefully he'll get to make the fifth movie.

There was no apocalypse involving nuclear weapons or the like, just zombies, hence the fact that most structures were intact. Kaufman said that he organized some people in order to clear out the zombies from the city and fortify it. My take on the relevance of money was that people really, really wanted things to be way they were before, and Kaufman provided that. Although the money probably wasn't backed by anything substantial (gold, whatever), people wanted to believe that it still had value, so it did. Not too different from today, really - ask the average person on the street why a dollar bill is worth anything and they'll probably just give you a blank stare.

I thought the actors did a good job. Hopper would have probably been more fun if he was more over-the-top, but his character was fairly calm and collected so it fit. That sidekick guy didn't really have any too annoying moments, which was mildy surprising. Overall I think the performances were suitable, given the context.

I don't know what to say about the ending not being "wicked awesome" other than it was fairly in keeping with the endings of the other three, except a bit cheerier maybe.

Ed and david_a give it a good review, I'm all over it.
Night and Dawn are excellent. Day is just so-so, IMVHO.
Good to have Leguiziamo and Hopper back together again after their great on-screen chemistry in Super Mario Bros. :D

Opulent said:

Night and Dawn are excellent. Day is just so-so, IMVHO

Heh, my Day DVD has a nice featurette where Romero is talking about the types of fan for each movie. Some people are die-hard fans of Night and can't tear themselves away, other people have a party with the wild Dawn, "and then there are the real trolls who like Day"

                                 --------------------------
                         /|  /|  |                        |
                         ||__||  |    DAY OF THE DEAD     |
                        /   O O\__         OWNZ           |
                       /          \                       |
                      /      \     \                      |
                     /   _    \     \ ---------------------
                    /    |\____\     \     ||
                   /     | | | |\____/     ||
                  /       \|_|_|/   |    __||
                 /  /  \            |____| ||
                /   |   | /|        |      --|
                |   |   |//         |____  --|
         * _    |  |_|_|_|          |     \-/
      *-- _--\ _ \     //           |
        /  _     \\ _ //   |        /
      *  /   \_ /- | -     |       |
        *      ___ c_c_c_C/ \C_c_c_c____________

Although Dawn is clearly the better movie, I watch Day more. I mean... COME ON:

"I don't want them to do anything but drop over!"
"Yes, well, apparently they're not inclined to do that for you, Captain."

"You've given us a mouthfull of Greek salad. Formulas, equations, a lot of fancy terms that don't mean a thing."

I do think that Night is probably the best movie of the bunch... Dawn is certainly a better crowd pleaser and the most exciting the first time through. Day isn't nearly as popular, probably due to the confined location and the unlikable characters, but obviously they had a blast making the movie. Savini had a field day with the gore and Pilato entered movie history with some of the most stunning dialogue ever captured.

JOE PILATO FOR PRESIDENT!!

I saw LotD on Sunday, and I have to say for a movie I've literally been waiting my whole life for, it was everything I expected and more. It's nice to see a movie that doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence for once, and when it's all tied together with deliciously gruesome gore, well, I guess that's just classic Romero again.

My few complaints are fair outweighed by the good aspects of the film, but I feel they're worth noting anyway. I thought the CGI blood splats during head shots weren't the best, but considering the low-budget of the film and all previous films before it, I guess you can't expect everything. And then I thought Big Daddy could have moaned a bit less and have been a bit more subtle like Bub was, but that's just more nitpicking on my part.

If anything, my biggest complaint was the lack of subtlety in the storyline on the obvious social commentary about today's current political situation (Then again, zombies returning to a mall to do the things they used to do in life after they've died isn't really subtle either, but eh). Hoppers line "We don't negotiate with terrorists" and Leguizamo's mention of a Jihad were probably the most noticable, and I wondered why Romero would put in such blatant lines. However, reading some of the negative reviews for the film, it was easy to see why, and it's a sad commentary on the state of movie watchers today. They missed it completely, and even if they didn't agree with the satire or think it was successfully employed, they didn't get one bit of it even when it was being slapped in their face. LotD wasn't another mindless horror film, and it's very dejecting to see it being labeled as such. Although it's always nice to see some zombie fans who can appreciate it. :)

As for Joe Pilato, well, Rhodes totally rules. I met him last summer at a Day of the Dead convention (The first, and so far, only one ever :O), and I have to say he was extremely accommodating to all the fans (And so was everyone else, of course).

Oh man was that movie fuckin' sweet.

gatewatcher said:

I saw it. It sucked, hard.

Dude the new "Dawn" was one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen.

I mean, Ving fuckin' Rhames. Come on.

He was talking about LotD.

id love to go see it, but since i live in the land of the seperatists (quebec) its only playing in french were i live. ill probably see it if i have enough energy left after sounds of the underground....btw is anyone from montreal going to that? sorry if im off topic

david_a said:

I wonder if it will do well enough in Universal's eyes that they'll give him money for a fifth one...

Sorry to post a seemingly unecessary third time, but I just saw this now.

I noticed a little bit ago on IMDB there's a page for a new version of Day of the Dead that's evidently supposed to come out in 2006. Not sure if Romero's directing it or not, since he didn't direct the "Dawn" remake, either.

Son of a bitch. Now we're going to have a hollywoodified version of Day.

They were planning this at the same time as the Dawn remake; I remember seening rumours for both. I believe there is even a thread about it here somewhere in the depths.

From what I remember this one is supposed to have almost nothing to do with the original.

david_a said:

They were planning this at the same time as the Dawn remake; I remember seening rumours for both. I believe there is even a thread about it here somewhere in the depths.

From what I remember this one is supposed to have almost nothing to do with the original.

You're probably thinking of Day of the Dead 2: Contagium. I've been following any news of projects relating to Romero's movies, and I've never heard of this new Day of the Dead before, aside from rumors after the Dawn remake that this would follow, and even then any news on this Day of the Dead was incredibly scarce.

I dunno I really liked the Dawn of the dead remake, I thought it was great. I hope its the same for Land of the dead.