My imagination was running wild.
The menacing heads of encroaching zombies stretched as far as the yellow and black horizon, under the shadow of a dimly lit cityscape. Floating above it all in large red and somewhat jagged block letters sat the title, the name of the movie I had been clamoring for even a glimpse of since the moment I had heard it was to exist: Land of the Dead (2005).
I clicked a few buttons on my computer and sat back with a satisfied look on my face as my screen refreshed. The teaser poster was officially my desktop background— one of the highest image-based honors achievable in 2005. I could hardly believe it: George A. Romero had a new of the Dead movie coming out, and I was actually going to be able to appreciate what that meant.
Night of the Living Dead (1968) had not just influenced me, but fundamentally altered my movie-loving DNA some years prior. It was a film that helped me understand the manner in which the extreme nature of the genre could allow for the distillation of broad social issues and emotional concerns. More than that, the film helped me dissect some of my own deep-seated emotions regarding death and our society’s tendency to cling to the past in the often healthier stead of letting go.
The experience I had with Night led to my affair with the remainder of his Dead trilogy and the horror genre at large, as well as a creative push to get out my own thoughts and feelings out on paper. In the end, Night of the Living Dead helped me to discover a newfound passion for writing that I carry with me to this day.
Suffice it to say, I had, and still have, a lot of love for Mr. Romero.
I followed news of Land of the Dead closely. I sleuthed across movie websites and scoured daily for images or snippets of plot. I allowed my hype to grow to astronomical levels. When the day of its release finally arrived, my brother and I showed up at the theater early to get seats. It warmed my heart to see a pretty substantial crowd, many wearing shirts depicting Romero’s various creations. Then, it was time. The lights dimmed and Romero’s vision unfolded.
As were his other entries in the Dead saga, the film was both an answer to the current state of the genre and an indictment of the state of society at the time. Rather than subtextual, the class warfare that Romero had always been interested in was at the forefront.
The film was the ultimate culmination of humanity’s inability to prioritize. The narrative features a place called Fiddler’s Green, a beacon for comfort and vice, where one can live out their life in luxury, blind to the horrors of the outside world. To accomplish this, the man in charge played by a cold-hearted Dennis Hopper, exploits those less fortunate, always dangling the potential for a better life just out of their grasp.
Meanwhile, the other half of the film is dedicated to the zombies, carrying the promise of Bub from Day of the Dead (1985) forward in the form of Big Daddy.
The film opens with an assault on a town solely occupied by the undead. They mill about their former places of business and homesteads, imitating life, or perhaps attempting to recapture it. They seem to live an innocuous existence, but one that is their own. Two humans watch, all the while musing about the implications of what they’re seeing. Shortly thereafter, it’s time to distract the creatures with a fireworks show, burst into town guns blazing and mow down the reanimated citizens, a slap in the face to their carefully cultivated routines.
The brilliance of Land of the Dead comes alive from that moment on, allowing the audience to gain the sort of perspective that society would never accept and that the movie so succinctly summarizes toward the end of its runtime— “they’re just looking for a place to go. Same as us.”
That day as I was driving home and reflecting on my first experience with the film, not to mention arguing with others about its quality (of which I was, am and will always be a staunch defender), it was that initial glimpse at the functioning zombie community that truly stood out. While it may not have been the most shocking, inventively grotesque or particularly long effects sequence in the film, the view inside of an evolving zombie community set the stage, tone and narrative thrust of the zombie plight perfectly…
The Undead American Dream.
From its humble beginnings on the page, written to somewhat surprise the audience and further endear the viewer to the zombie way of life, to its impressively complex realization on screen with almost entirely practical applications and effects, the sequence is as memorable as it is essential to the story. I may have allowed myself to be overcome with hype for this movie but it did not disappoint and, over time, it has only grown more impressively relevant, prescient and effective.
THE SCENE
A large, unlit sign which reads EATS fills the frame. The town is quiet, filled with the shuffling of the undead. Several zombies approach a gazebo. Inside are three more of the undead, clutching old instruments and making odd noises as they attempt to play them. Other zombies watch. There’s a sense of calm contentment to them. One couple trips a wire at the gas station and a zombie in a workman’s outfit labeled “Big Daddy” emerges, pumping gas into a car that isn’t there. All the while, several humans watch on in awe, more curious than afraid. They come to the conclusion that the zombies are imitating life. Or, perhaps, they decide, maybe it’s they that are doing the imitating.
THE SCRIPT
THE SCREEN
CLICK! IN ABSOLUTE BLACK, A SINGLE WORD FADES UP: “TODAY”. A SOUND FADES IN TOO. TCHICK! KA-TCHICK-TCHICKY-TCHICKY! Soft. Metallic. It makes us nervous.
Both the film and the screenplay exit the credit sequence with the word TODAY, an ominous acknowledgement of all that has come before and the inevitable impact the undead have had on the world in the twenty years since the previous installment. The script suggests a diegetic, indiscernible sound; one that makes the viewer “nervous”. Well, not just the viewer, as Romero used the word “us”, suggesting that the writer might be a bit uneasy as well.
A FULL MOON shines over the picture-perfect American town.
George A. Romero’s screenplay quickly asserts impressions of the American dream, painting the image of a calm, populated town in the evening hours. With a simple sentence, he evokes a sentimentality that every reader can at least imagine, whether they’ve lived it or not. The promise society has made, but has not delivered on.
PEOPLE, seen in SILHOUETTE, stroll past quaint shops whose signs promise RELIABLE APPLIANCES, WELL-MADE CLOTHES, SOLID VALUES. A DINER has a neon sign that offers the “BEST EATS IN TOWN”.
The screenplay continues, glimpsing a town right out of 1950s Americana. There’s a wholesomeness to the setting that feels safe and welcoming. An incorruptibility that feels only achievable in a dream.
But something is wrong. The neon isn’t lit. Nothing in the town is lit. Street lamps, windows, are all dark.
There’s a progression to the breakdown of what makes a viewer comfortable present in this scene, despite the fact that the person watching is fully aware of the film’s intent. Not to mention, that strange sound, which again the script references here: TCHICK! KA-TCHICK-TCHICK. That DISTURBING SOUND continues. A warning alarm that the implied values on display are long since subverted, or perhaps in some ways distilled by humanity’s unprecedented decline.
The film opts to interpret these words a bit differently.
The image fades in on a large, unlit, neon sign which reads “EATS”. Simplifying the suggested “BEST EATS IN TOWN” to a single word accomplishes the same end, while also representing the directness of commercialism and carnal desire which had ruled the previously dominant class. A giant, colorful arrow pointing the masses to where they can consume to bursting, something the zombies would more than likely appreciate as well.
The camera pans down across an overgrown park. People begin to emerge from the trees. Somewhat silhouetted as the screenplay called for, but moving stiffly and shuffling about. There is no mystery about the town, no sense that it houses a certain slice-of-life perspective, rather that it is the husk of a community that perhaps once might have.
The soft TCHICK! KA-TCHICK-TCHICK can be heard very slightly in the background from the start, at first so distant that it is hardly noticeable. As the camera pans, it grows louder as does a light tapping noise. More ghouls become visible. Some are near a church in the distance. Others mill about the trees. One passes by the center of the camera, a forlorn, skeletal, gasping thing with faded white eyes and a vacant stare. Still, there’s a mundaneness to it all. An innocence that doesn’t suggest danger, rather boorish monotony.
Some of the PEDESTRIANS drift into the “UNIONTOWN PARK”, milling around a GAZEBO, where THREE “MUSICIANS” are struggling with a trombone, a saxophone, and a tambourine.
Still in the same continuous shot, a gazebo enters the frame. A squawking bellow of low brass joined the TCHICK. As scripted, three zombies stand under the gazebo’s thatched roof. Each is clutching onto the instrument mentioned, with the exception of the saxophone being switched out for what appears to be a euphonium. An elderly zombie swings his trombone against the wall, while a zombie in the middle actually blows into his, hence the awkward bursts of brassy bass. The third zombie hits his tambourine, the only one managing to play its instrument correctly, although with no rhythm to speak of at all: That’s where that sound is coming from. TCHICK! KA-TCHICK-TCHICKY-TCHICK
A CLOSER INSPECTION REVEALS: The “MUSICIANS” are DEAD. So are the “PEDESTRIANS”. Flesh is rotting off their bones. The town itself, which at first looked so perfect, is ROTTING TOO.
With the revelation of the musicians, the screenplay shows its hand. The film followed a similar through-line, excluding the shots of storefronts while extracting the mystique associated with them. Ultimately, the message is the same, the American Dream has been inherited by the undead, and they’re doing their best to achieve it.
The image cuts to a DEAD TEENAGE COUPLE referenced several paragraphs later, forgoing a bit of dialogue momentarily. As scripted, the two walk across the parking lot of a gas station, in the film called “Big Daddy’s Gas & Repair” as opposed to the defunct TEXACO STATION mentioned on the page. The boy steps on the little hose that BINGS and out of the building comes… AN ATTENDANT. The Attendant in question emerges in a wide shot, from far away he’s clearly a tall African-American man in a light-blue work uniform.
The image cuts to two people watching from the bushes in a close up. One, Riley, is the film’s protagonist, and the other is Mike, a young mercenary. Like the viewer, they have been observing the zombie town, more in awe than in fear. In fact, the dialogue, which has been almost entirely relegated to Riley, primarily reflects curiosity:
“They’re trying to be us. They used to be us. They’re learning how to be us again.”
As Riley muses about the nature of the undead, the image cuts back to Big Daddy, giving the film’s first good look at him. In the script: It was once tall and handsome. Now his face is a wrinkled map of death. The page describes the thing as missing its left arm, but the film keeps him whole. His face is lined with rough tracks, leathery skin that has rotted and hardened in the sun, making the comment a wrinkled map of death astute. Yet, there’s an alertness to him, one that arises as his routine is interrupted.
He goes to the pump and removes the nozzle. Turns, as if searching for a car to fill with gas. There is none.
Riley and Mike continue to talk in intercutting close ups, somewhat ignoring Big Daddy as if the thing is not a real threat. The conversation climaxes with Mike’s comment, “It’s like they’re pretending to be alive” followed by Riley’s somewhat defeated reply, “Isn’t that what we’re doing son? Pretending to be alive?”
While the script leaves it at that, the film continues on, cutting back to Big Daddy who focuses in on the spot where Riley and Mike are hiding. He growls and bares his teeth. The timing is suggestive of not only the zombie’s inherent hunger for flesh, but his frustration at the intruder’s infiltration. After all, Big Daddy was simply doing his job and was unceremoniously interrupted.
Big Daddy releases a loud, barking call. Several nearby zombies turn in close ups. Riley again perks up with interest rather than fear, remarking, “Christ, it’s like he’s talking to them.” With that, Riley and Mike hurry off, leaving Big Daddy to his suspicions. They’ve been found out and have to alert the others.
Seemingly lost on Riley is the revelation that humanity, as it always has regarding those things which pose a challenge to its way of life, has once again underestimated the zombie threat. Perhaps what the movie opened with was a glimpse at the American Dream— after all, if the dead can imitate, think or even remember, perhaps they can dream too.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
“People say that these zombies are more advanced, that they’re actually communicating,” George A. Romero said on his commentary track for Land of the Dead, found on the Scream Factory blu-ray release (Available here), “actually in Day of the Dead I had a character named Bub who was very communicative… In terms of level of advancement, I think Big Daddy is about where Bub was.”
Land of the Dead remained my desktop wallpaper for months, Big Daddy’s face staring perpetually forward from the bottom of my computer screen toward he and his people’s salvation. I never considered the zombie perspective in those months leading up to the film’s release, or the implications such a narrative might have through society’s lens. The discriminated, working class, rising up against those that would exploit them, even destroy them if it meant the proliferation of the elite. The logical expansion of the message George A. Romero began to spread in 1968.
Still, while Big Daddy might have been Bub’s successor, part of what differentiated Land of the Dead from Romero’s other works, was the distinctive look of the zombies. In his commentary tack, George A. Romero talks about the complex, practical work that Greg Nicotero and his team put into the zombies, in some cases creating full size “animatronic dolls”. However, it was important to everyone involved that the look and feel of the creatures be unique to the film, while honoring what had come before.
“The way the zombies look in this picture is different from the look of the zombies in the past… an extension of George’s zombie look,” Producer Peter Grunwald said in the feature “Bringing the Dead to Life” found on the blu-ray. In the same feature, the filmmakers discuss how they approached the zombie’s skin, rough and leathery after being in the sun for so many years. Small details mattered and the team wanted to get everything just right.
“For a more advanced zombie,” Greg Nicotero said, “the eyes are sort of glazed over but then for some of the newer ones we went for a red outer rim.” He also went on to explain the importance of their movement, saying that over the immense time since the genesis of the ghouls, “they [have] become less animated. It’s harder to walk… their muscles don’t work and their bodies are more brittle.”
That sense of fragility is ever-present in the film, in both the living and the dead alike. Each group seeks a long hibernating dream of a wholesome life. An American dream long since presumed dead. A sense of purpose, of place, of community. Again, in the movie’s words:
“They’re just looking for a place to go. Same as us.”
The opening sequence exemplifies this nuanced approach to the zombie apocalypse, providing line of sight to the evolution of those things which humanity has and is transitioning into along with the de-evolution of those who still live and breathe. Juxtaposing the two by way of choice and imitation raises so many fascinating questions, parallels which haunt the remainder of the film and ultimately cue the viewer into one of the most important thematic elements the movie has to offer: Survival is not always living.
But, of course, none of it would be possible without George A. Romero’s unequalled vision. Top to bottom, the film has his fingerprints all over it and yet feels free and untethered as its own entity. Like each zombie in the film, each of Romero’s Dead movies feel connected but separate, fueled by his willingness to collaborate and welcome in new elements as they present themselves over time.
I liken it to the filmmaker’s philosophy when it comes to directing the zombies themselves. In his own words,
“You can’t tell the zombies how to move. There you are, you’ve got 50 zombies staring at you, and if I say, ‘okay, so you’re dead so you wanna,’” George says, gesturing with his arms, “that’s as far as it goes. If I do that,” George continues, gesturing again, “then 50 people will do that. So, what I always say is, you know… use your imagination.”
I think it’s safe to say, if there’s one thing that George A. Romero has taught us all, it’s how to better apply our imaginations.
Land of the Dead (2005): Written & Directed by George A. Romero
