...just saw 'Land of the Dead'
knewjak
1,231 Posts
and its got a bad case of the terribles.thanks, as you were.
knewjak
1,231 Posts
Comments
Was it just a.......got my hopes up that this would be the greatest movie ever....let down or was it actually really bad.
Was it at least as good as Batman Begins. Cuz a lot of people were dissing that just cuz they got their hopes up that it would somehow be.......
I totally dug it. Not great, but way better than Day or the Dawn remake.
My only real complaint was that it was too short on exposition. Romero seemed to rush things along to emulate contemporary action flicks, and it would have been better with more information regarding the actual characters and city. Other than that, pretty darn satisfying.
Im a bit of a zombie film buff, so I went into this looking to be entertained from the stand point that I am a fan of Romero and zombie culture, also I just wanted to see a good movie. However, the movie blows in both regards, the zombie fans are going to hate this, and regular movie fans are not going to be happy either. It had waaayy to many modern-teen-horror-movie cliches. The original 'Dawn of the Dead' was scary because it had major character development and you did not want to see the humans get hurt. In 'Land of the Dead' you could care less about who dies, plus the sound effects were those typical short burst of loud screeches (ie ill horn stabs) every time someone turnd a corner. Plus it did not follow 'Day of the Dead's post apocalyptic future in at all. Very very predictable shitty scholck. D-
yeah, I agree. The gore was totally on point.
When the movie ended, I swear the audience was still siting there waiting for something to happen. And then when the ending credits ran, I looked at the viewers and everyone had a gasface ('wait, that CANT be the ending right?').
I disagree. It follows the logic of the world Romero created in Dawn, and especially the stuff in Day where the Zombies are evolving. I do agree that in Dawn, the human characters are the primary development, where as in Land, I found myself most interested in the Zombie characters as the humans were quite undeveloped/uninteresting.
I am a huge Romero/NOTLD/Dawn fan, and I found this to be a solid addition to the series. I am however looking forward to a longer director's cut. Hopefully that would address the film's most obvious weaknesses. The gore was excellent and the zombies(outside of Bud, from Day) were his best ever.
I think 'Land' follows the continuing logic 'somewhat'. In Day, there were supposed to be only a few people left in the world. Granted, it would be stupid to assume that everyone in the bunker were last humans, but Day painted a far bleeker outlook on the situation.
I think it would have been better to see a small group of humans (4 or 5) trying to make their way accross country or something(and not in a retarded armor RV), rather than deal with a typical 'get the bad guy' plot.
anyway, did you happen to notice that one of the zombies was the motorcycle gang leader in dawn? (same clothes and everything).
I think that was Tom Savini (not sure if I spelled it right), super god of horror effects. I guess the two dudes who made Sean of the Dead were also zombies in this one as well. I love nerdy shit like that.
Yeah, there was a whole featurette made(by Roy Frumkes, who made the documentary 'Document of the Dead', at the filming of Dawn of the Dead), using Tom's cameo as a jump-off to talk about this installment of the 'Dead' films. It was OK, fun to see before I saw the flick. It was showing on IFC last week.
I will be the first to say I am not terribly objective regarding Romero's film, because I like his work so much in general. I think the film's biggest letdown was that it is less personal than a lot of his other flicks, but he successfully trasitions into the studio system and handed in a contemporary horror action/flick. I just miss the slower pacing and more thoughtful nature of his 70s/80s work. On the other hand, I am really glad to see him get shine and will happily enjoy his commentary track when 'Land' goes to DVD!
Stylistically, LAND also suffers from looking like a film from about 10-15 years ago - it just can't match the grittiness of the DAWN remake and definitely betrays its low budget, an obstacle that 28 DAYS LATER overcame with ease. Parts of LAND reminded me of a ESCAPE FROM NY or ROAD WARRIOR ripoff from the late 80s, and not in a good way.
Still, I'm glad to see Romero back in the director's chair and I'd recommend this for zombie fans (he definitely had enough gratuitous gore moments to please the Fangoria set), but it's definitely just an average film IMO.
I'm a big fan of zombie movies too, and I guess I was entertained, but I don't really like where the last two have taken this scenario. The whole idea of zombie "characters" pretty much defeats what I like most about the zombie genre in general. And that whole last bit with the main character saying "leave them alone, they're just looking for a place to go, just like us." Yeah, a place to go EAT HUMANS' BRAINS! That shit is fucking stupid.
I agree - what worked so well about NOTLD, ZOMBIE, 28 DAYS LATER, DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, etc. was the sheer visceral shock of mindless monsters coming after people and tearing the hell out of them. Unfortunately when more complex plots (like scientific experiments, underground bunkers, political scheming, zombie protest marches) come into play, it defuses the fear factor to an incredible degree. What is a plus for "story" can often be a minus for "scary."
Yeah, nice try Romero, but main hero dude didn't spend the movie seeing how the Big Daddy zombie was evolving, like the audience did. There's absolutely no reason why his character would have any empathy at all with the "stenches" apart from Romero wanting to make a philosophical point about society.