Land of the Dead (also known as George A. Romero's Land of the Dead) is a 2005 post-apocalyptic horror film written and directed by George A. Romero; the fourth of Romero's six Living Dead movies, it is preceded by Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, and succeeded by Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. It was released in 2005, with a budget of $15–19 million, the highest in Romero's Dead series, and grossed $46 million. Romero was offered a budget of $15 million-19 million after negotiating with Universal Pictures, making the film his highest-budgeted film in the series. He used this as a chance to draw upon on some elements he was not able to use on Day of the Dead, due to budget constraints.

Ratings

Land of the Dead is the first film in the series to receive an MPAA rating for its theatrical release. Romero had said for years that he would film two versions: an R rated cut for theatrical release and first DVD, and an unrated cut for the second DVD release. Both DVDs were released in the U.S. on October 18, 2005. Rumors suggested that Romero shot alternate, less explicit, gore scenes for the theatrical release, but this is not entirely accurate. The more extreme instances of gore (e.g. a woman having her navel piercing graphically torn out by a zombie) were obscured by foreground elements filmed on bluescreen, so that these overlaid elements could be easily removed for the unrated DVD. Other ways to obscure blood to get an R-rating were achieved by simply trimming the grislier shots by a few seconds, by digitally repainting blood so that it is more black than red, or by digitally painting the blood out altogether.

British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario gave both the theatrical version and DVD version a rating of 18A, though it was only given a 13+ rating in Quebec.

In the UK, the BBFC gave both the theatrical version and the unrated version a 15 certificate for strong language, violence, horror and gore. Every UK release bar the UMD version were rated 18 overall due to a bonus feature (a highlights reel of the goriest moments called Scenes of Carnage).

In Germany, both the theatrical and unrated versions were rated 18 anyway. As such, only the unrated version was widely available in Germany.

The film was banned in Ukraine.

Reception

The film earned a 75% approval rating at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 179 reviews and an average rating of 6.70/10. The site's consensus says, "George A. Romero's latest entry in his much-vaunted Dead series is not as fresh as his genre-inventing original, Night of the Living Dead. But Land of the Dead does deliver on the gore and zombies-feasting-on-flesh action." On Metacritic, which assesses film with a score out of 100, the film holds a rating of 71 based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four for what he considered its skillful and creative allusions, something that he argued was pervasive among Romero's previous three installments, which contained numerous satirical metaphors to American life. Ebert noted this installment's distinction between the rich and poor, those that live in Fiddler's Green and those that live in the slums. John Lutz, in Zombies of the World, Unite: Class Struggle and Alienation in Land of the Dead, drew comparisons between the fireworks which were set off to distract the zombies in Land of the Dead to the US military 'shock and awe' displays seen in its military actions. Jeffrey Westhoff of Northwest Herald gave the film a rating of 3.5 stars out of four, saying, "The most shocking thing about Land of the Dead is not the vivid dismemberments but how boldly Romero holds a macabre mirror up to post-9/11 America." Michael Wilmington of Chicago Tribune awarded the film four stars, writing, "It's another hard-edged, funny, playfully perverse and violent exercise in movie fear and loathing, with an increasingly dark take on a world spinning out of control. By now, Romero has become a classicist who uses character and dialogue as much as stomach-turning special effects to achieve his shivers." The New York Sun declared it "the American movie of the year".

Several filmmakers, including John Landis, Eli Roth, Clive Barker, and Guillermo del Toro, paid tribute to Romero in a Land of the Dead special. Guillermo del Toro said: "Finally someone was smart enough to realize that it was about time, and gave George the tools. It should be a cause of celebration amongst all of us that Michelangelo has started another ceiling. It's really a momentous occasion..."

Video game

A prequel, Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green, was released later that year.

References

  • (archived from 2006)