Movie: Land of the Dead--George A. Romero

The undead are making progress.  They are beginning to show some ability in taking direction, they are learning to work together cooperatively and they have some rudimentary deductive reasoning. Zombies have also become tool users on a very basic level. And they said the dead can't evolve. Land of the Dead has some excellent noir cinematography, and the opening sequences are very effective in setting up this nightmarish world.  It seems this post-apocalyptic land has a few enclosed outposts, one of which is Pittsburgh where the film allegedly takes place (Zombie Fun Fact:  Director George Romero wanted to film in his home town of Pittsburgh.  Filming was done in Toronto, however, in order to tax advantage of Canadian tax incentives.) 

At this point in the zombie saga, society has adapted to the circumstances of residing amidst the permanent infestation of the undead, and the living shield themselves within the confines of a protected city, bordered on three sides by a river.  The residents are polarized along the usual lines where the ultra rich live in an exclusive high rise complex called "Fiddler's Green," while the rest of the people are treated as a servant class who are responsible for maintaining and protecting the existence of the privileged.  In other words, a slightly exaggerated version of our own society.(Zombie Fun Fact:  "Fiddler's Green" is a song about the place where calvarymen go when they die.  It is located "Halfway down the trail to hell" and in the end advocates suicide by pistol when death is certain and the "hostiles" are closing in.) The city overlord is a man named Kaufman (played with deft understatement by Dennis Hopper), and he is a greedy, power-possessed C.E.O. controlling his self-visualized fortress.  He shields the rich with heavy policing at the borders, and the servant class is kept distracted with decadent amusements. (Zombie Fun Fact:  In one scene a young woman is thrown into a cage to fight two zombies to the death, a la gladiator style, and she is played by Asia Argento, the daughter of a noted Italian horror filmmaker, Dario Argento who was also co-producer of Dawn of the Dead.)

In several scenes a friend or co-worker is suddenly bitten by a zombie and, therefore, soon to be a member of the zombie hoard. This requires they be murdered on the spot, as it "only takes about an hour to become a zombie."  The viewer must ponder the question:  Are the zombies as inconsequential as the working proles?  In this film, the zombies seem to carry some vague memory of their previous roles in society, and they find a leader among them who takes them to the walled city and through his uber intellectual capacities grunts and gesticulates his orders to charge the barricades.  As in Dawn of the Dead, Romero shows his ongoing contempt for our consumer culture in his destruction of the Grand Concourse of "Fiddler's Green."  Basically, the zombies are out to eat the rich.  (Zombie Fun Fact:  A non-union zombie would make CDN$9 per hour while a union zombie, for a minimum of 8 hours, would make CDN$158.) 

There's more than enough of the usual gratuitous violence for the whole family, but it's all part of the Grand Guignol, and Romero gives you plenty to chew on.

                            Things To Know About Zombies - 2005

Kill the brain, kill the zombie (a classic)

Zombies don't have to know how to swim

Zombies retain a sense of work ethic, even after they are dead

Zombies like fireworks, particularly the chrysanthemum displays, (very much like the Mall on July 4th)

Zombies are tool users

Zombies are beginning to evolve a sense of deductive reasoning

Some zombies have leadership skills

It takes at least one hour to become a zombie

You can only be zombie food for one hour after you are bitten.  Then YOU are a zombie, and you are safe.

       

                              Oh yeah...zombies resent the living