Land of the Dead

A good twenty years after the “Day of the Dead” (1985), Romero finally gets the chance to make the fourth chapter of his living dead saga – an opportunity that presented itself thanks only to the success achieved by Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” (2004), a rather unsettling fact.

But if the producers had been hoping for more of the same old pablum to foist off on an early 21st-century popcorn and cola public, they’d made a serious miscalculation this time. Romero demonstrates he hasn’t lost his touch when it comes to exploiting the metaphorical possibilities of the genre itself, nor has he abandoned his resolve to comment on important socio-political issues.

In fact, “Land of the Dead” is unquestionably his most explicitly Marxist film, one in which the “infected” living dead (led by the African American former gas-station attendant Big Daddy, a sort of proletariat leader engaged in consciousness raising) progressively become aware of their status and the iniquities perpetrated by a corrupt oligarchy.

In that light, Dennis Hopper’s performance in the role of the slimy politician is particularly eloquent, with his only concerns being accumulating money, erecting barriers, and enjoying extravagant privileges in a long-since collapsed world.

Not a masterpiece, but another commendable result at least.