• Land of the Dead Film review
• Land of the Dead News

Fourth and final part of the "Dead" series of zombie films

Set many years after "Day" and zombies have taken over the world leaving those still alive confined to a barricaded city.  Protected by walls, rivers and "Dead Reckoning" - a heavily armoured war wagon - the city is divided between the privileged (and increasingly resented) leaders in their fortified skyscrapers above and mob rule in the streets below. Outside the city, the zombies are getting cleverer...

Notes

• This film is due out October 2005 though I happened across a script for it recently (January '05 - dated August ‘04).  I can't say for certain that this is the authentic, final script but it does match available official plot information about the film.  Also the IMDB entry on it contains the same characters, so it's either real or a good fake.
• I am not going distribute this script online or via email (so don't ask) - kind of a legal grey area
  
• I shall try and discuss the script without spoilers.  However, if you really don't want to know anything about it, then you should not read on.

Preamble

 Who would have thought that another chapter of the Dead would ever actually get made?  It has been rumoured for years but now it has finally gone ahead with the father of modern zombie films at the helm.  So, with Romero back will those young zombie pretenders find out who's really the boss?  Well, I was a little unsure when I first heard about this.  Romero is unquestionably the man with the vision by way of the original trilogy, but with him being about 65 now, it being 20 years since Day of the Dead with not much success since then, one has to wonder if he is still up to it.  Early on it was revealed that Dennis Hopper had a major role in it, he's undoubtedly done some good stuff too, but to be honest he's not done anything credible for a while in my opinion (Super Mario Bothers, anyone?).  Plus, big name stars and zombie films is not usually a winning combination.  The next alarming titbit of information: the zombies are evolving.  What!?! Surely this is against everything zombie?  Now I'm getting serious reservations.

The earlier ideas / rumours that were floating about for Dead IV were that it was called "Dusk of the Dead" and its main idea was to be along the lines that the zombies were gradually decaying into insignificance; to be seen as an uncomfortable inconvenience rather than a threat.  The allegory of this idea being that the undead are like homeless people on the street.  This idea, personally, I find more interesting.

What may be construed as minor spoilers to follow:

After chancing upon this script I really couldn't help myself reading through it despite knowing I am spoiling it for myself - the temptation was too great, I had to know.

As I've said already I shan't give specific details away but I will say now that there are serious LORE violations in this script; animal zombies (where have they been for the first three films?) and clever zombies.  There's even a violation of a point I had not even considered yet - emotional zombies!

Yes it is true about the evolving zombies.  This has been hinted about in Day of the Dead with Bub the zombie learning tricks from Dr. Logan (which was an interesting and eerie plotline).  Land of the Dead goes way beyond this though and I have a problem with it.  By definition a zombie film - one about dead humans all confusedly stumbling around in the pursuit of live flesh - is going to follow a fairly common path.  It is a limited idea and it takes a gifted filmmaker to introduce some fresh ideas into this well-established genre.  One way to inject some new life (ahem) is to play around with the basic notions of a zombie - 28 Days Later did it very well, as did Dawn of the Dead '04.  Does Land of the Dead do it?  In my opinion, no.   Frankly, there were a number of times I actually winced while reading this script.  I can see the same happening across cinemas when the film comes out - and not just by zombie purists like me.  It is a very fine line between scary and stupid when it comes to zombie films and there are numerous scenes here that are on the wrong side of that line.  Many times I have been watching a film when the plot takes such a dim-witted lurch into brainlessness that I'm left asking myself "what on earth were they thinking?"  I call these Matrix moments.  Some films like, say, Alien vs Predator, Independence Day, etc you have only got yourself to blame but what was Tim Burton thinking about at the end of Planet of the Apes?  And how did Danny Boyle get it so wrong in The Beach?  Phantom Menace?  I am truly sorry to report that there more than a few of these moments in Land and, no, I can't believe I'm saying this either - this is Romero, after all, and if anyone ought to get the zombie plot spot on it ought to be him.  He has paid his zombie dues a thousand times, but the Emperor's new clothes rule still applies.

Apart form the seismic lore shift, the generally weak script also suffers from weak characters:

• they are all one dimensional good guy - bad guy types
• they are apparently motivated by cash - is currency still relevant now?
• they are still speculating about the nature of zombies.  If this is 20 - 30 years since the whole zombie apocalypse began then surely they would not be asking "what are they" type questions any more.  Indeed, if you do the sums, many of the characters would actually have been born after civilisation broke down - they would not have memories of normal society to make any comparisons.  After this amount of time, it's the humans that should have evolved, not the zombies.

Maybe the film will be different

It is common for scripts to change dramatically once they make it to celluloid - perhaps that will happen here.  It is worth noting that Romero's original script for Day of the Dead was entirely different to what eventually got made.  But if this is the authentic script (and I must reiterate that I don't know for sure that it is) then there will have to be some major changes to drag it back to credible.  The points I have the biggest problems with are central to the whole plot and would need major rewriting. 

I suppose it is vaguely possible that the final vision is such a tremendous piece of filmmaking that it renders the creaky plot more true.  If Romero could pull that off then I would be amazed though.   I am pinning my hopes on me having picked up some ingeniously disguised fan fiction, and that the real script is what we want - an entirely fitting conclusion to the quadrilogy.

Least un-favourite Scene:

The opening scene.  How could you not be agog at the first glimpse of how the world is 30 years after zombies took over.

Least un-favourite Quote:

[After a character is bitten they are offered the only option to prevent the otherwise inevitable ] :

"No, don't shoot.  I always wanted to see how the other half lives."

Script Rating:

2/5

Adherence to THE LORE:

2/5

See Also

Land of the Dead News

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!