At the turn of the century, George Romero visited my film school. Gerald S. Paonessa, the executive producer of Monkey Shines was working at the school and invited him down. He brought a 35mm print of his just finished Bruiser to show us in our huge main theater. The film was interesting, but ended up going straight to video in America. The highlight of his time was when a group of us went over to a nearby bar to talk and drink with him. He was in preproduction on adapting Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I nearly volunteered to work on it as we talked about shooting at Fenway Park since Gordon was the Redsox’s ace relief pitcher at the end of the ’90s. Knowing the book, I realized a few days shooting at Fenway would be up against a month stuck in the woods of Canada and didn’t beg for the gig. I kept asking him for stories about his friendship with Mr. Rogers. He talked about how the two would hang out at the carpool lane of their kids’ school. They did work together. Romero shot the short film about the time Mr. Rogers had a tonsillectomy. George Romero was a kind and very sharing guest except he held back one thing. We had no clue he was writing the fourth installment of his Living Dead series. It took a little more time for Land of the Dead to arrive in theaters, but it proved to be a hit during the time zombies were all the rage.
Humanity is doing its best to survive as the undead walk around them. Downtown Pittsburgh has become a city-state with protection by two rivers and a super fortified border on the land edge. While you’d imagine people would just stay behind the walls and water, it turns out that in order to survive, people must go out and raid the grocery stores and drug stores nearby of canned goods to survive. A few people are surviving in high style inside the Fiddler’s Green skyscraper. The building and the city are overseen by Paul Kaufman (Blue Velvet‘s Dennis Hopper). He even built the massive, armored truck Dead Reckoning that roams outside the city getting supplies and transporting people to other cities. Two people running missions with Dead Reckoning are Riley Denbo (The Mentalist‘s Simon Baker) and Cholo DeMora (Super Mario Bros.‘ John Leguizamo). Denbo doesn’t like how instead of necessary staples, Cholo will loot booze and cigars in the dangerous stores in zombie turf. These luxury items are part of his charm offensive to get into the elite building. But will they ever let Cholo hob nob with the rich and famous? Making matters worse is the guards working the wall have a hunch that the zombies are somehow getting smarter and perhaps communicating. This includes a zombie known as Big Daddy (Trailer Park Boys: The Movie‘s Eugene Clark) since it’s on his work jumpsuit. Is Pittsburgh a doomed community?
Land of the Dead works great as the fourth installment of the series. We go from the underground world of Day of the Dead to a bit of hope with the secured Pittsburgh. Naturally things will go bad because people like to screw up a good thing. As we’ve learned since 2005 when the film came out, people don’t like to cooperate for the good of society when faced with a health disaster. There’s a subplot about how Mulligan (Bruce McFee) is leading a rebellion of the poor folks against the rich people in Fiddler’s Green. Kaufman has ordered Slack (B. Monkey‘s Asia Argento) to be killed in a zombie fighting cage match for helping Mulligan. She eventually becomes part of Denbo’s crew when they have their struggle against an upset Cholo.
The cast of Land of the Dead makes sure you don’t feel they’re zombies shuffling around the screen. John Leguizamo and Simon Baker butt heads just right. Dennis Hopper seems like the kind of guy who’d be in charge of a city during a zombie apocalypse. Asia Argento looks like she wanted to fight more zombies in the cage match. Eugene Clark’s Big Daddy zombie takes over the screen when he staggers toward Pittsburgh.
This is the unrated version of Land of the Dead on the 4K UHD so you get that four minutes of gore that the MPAA couldn’t handle. The R-rated theatrical version is included on one of the Blu-rays. You’re going to want to see what George Romero edited together and not what Jack Valenti’s goon squad ordered snipped.
I really wish I’d known George Romero had more Living Dead in mind that afternoon at the bar. Being a P.A. stuck in a Canadian forest wasn’t so hot, but I would have begged to be a zombie getting a mouthful of intestines from a high-profile victim in Land of the Dead.
The Video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The new 4K restoration from the original camera negative in Dolby Vision. The night scenes look great with the extra resolution. The Audio is Dolby Atmos, 5.1 Surround DTS-HD MA and 2.0 Stereo DTS-HD MA. You’ll hear the zombies moan from all over your room. The subtitles are in English.
Audio Commentary with Writer/Director George A. Romero, Producer Peter Grunwald, and Editor Michael Doherty gets into how the film came together. George lays out how your become a zombie. He talks about how the stories are separate. He considered the first film was about ghouls and not zombies. Romero passed away in 2017 so it’s good to hear him watch the film with us. He’s a Living Dead voice in your house now when you select the commentary track.
Audio Commentary with Zombie Performers Matt Blazi, Glena Chao, Michael Felsher, and Rob Mayr is fun as they get to do more than moan. They talk about the first time they saw Night of the Living Dead. One of them thought they were going to just do a quick set visit, but special effects wizard Greg Nicotero had them set to makeup and put them at the front of a zombie road. It sounded great to be a zombie on this shoot.
Undead Again: The Making of Land of The Dead (12:55) has George Romero excited that named actors wanted to be in the film including Dennis Hopper. Dennis talks about what a thrill it is to work for George since Easy Rider came out around the same time as Night of the Living Dead. He played his character like Donald Rumsfeld. Asia Argento saw George’s movies when she was 8 since her dad Dario Argento produced Dawn of the Dead. Asia talks about growing up around the smell of fake blood. John Leguizamo is all raves. There’s zombie talk with Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead)
Bringing The Dead to Life (9:29) has everyone praising Greg Nicotero and his zombie effects. He knew George Romero from growing up in Pittsburgh. They first met in a restaurant in Rome when Greg was a kid. He’d end up working with Romero. Years later, Greg would use his zombie knowledge for The Walking Dead.
Scenes Of Carnage (1:42) is a lot of eating with flashlights.
Zombie Effects: From Green Screen to Finished Scene (3:17) give us a hint of how they created so much of the city with green screen effects. There’s a lot more special effects than what you imagined from the film.
Scream Test – CGI Test (1:03) is a dancing zombie show.
Bringing The Storyboards to Life (7:54) deals with the final scene. Don’t watch this until you’ve seen the movie.
A Day with The Living Dead Hosted by John Leguizamo (7:33) has him mention the film started as Dead Reckoning. John is pumped up to be there. John needs to do more horror.
When Shaun Met George – Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright Visit the Set (12:58) has the guys behind Shawn of the Dead go to Toronto to play zombies. They are such babies.
Disc Three (BLU-RAY, THEATRICAL VERSION)
NEW 2024 4K Restoration from The Original Camera Negative
Cholo’s Reckoning (15:36) sits down with Actor John Leguizamo. He digs into what excited him about working with George Romero. He worked with Romero on The Dark Half. He was impressed that when he arrived in Pittsburgh, Romero immediately invited him out to dinner.
Charlie’s Story (15:05) lets us meet Actor Robert Joy without his makeup. He sees Charlie as having a good influence on the characters and himself as an actor.
The Pillsbury Factor (17:28) gets a serious glare from Actor Pedro Miguel Arce. He was a college football who auditioned for a football player role in a movie. He didn’t get cast. His buddy got in the film and a few others. He got serious about acting after that. He got his first part shortly after getting an agent. He didn’t think he’d get cast as Pillsbury in the film, but it happened. He talks about how George reacted to his first take. He loved working with George.
Four Of the Apocalypse (18:50) catches up with Actors Eugene Clark, Jennifer Baxter, Boyd Banks, and Jasmin Geljo. They all played zombies in the film. What does it take to play the undead?
Dream Of the Dead: The Director’s Cut (24:39) with Optional Commentary by Director Roy Frumkes. Has George discussing the set up for his fourth installment in the series. There’s footage of him on the previous films including Dawn of the Dead since Frumkes made a documentary on that too. We follow Tom Savini’s cameo moment in the new movie. This aired on the IFC channel when it cared about Indie Films.
Deleted Footage from Dream of The Dead (18:02) has George in the editing room. he’s filming a zombie attack on the set, Greg and Tom telling story about a certain director and more.
Deleted Scenes (2:55) includes a jail break, zombie make out attack, loose zombie fingers and more.
Photo Gallery (9:12) contains behind the scenes photos, press photos, posters, Japanese press kit and lobby cards.
Theatrical Trailer (1:46) catches us up on the first three film before giving us George Romero’s latest dead nightmare.
Scream Factory presents Land of the Dead: Collector’s Edition. Directed by George A. Romero. Screenplay by George A. Romero. Starring Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, Eugene Clark and Tom Savini. Boxset Contents: 1 4K UHD disc and 2 Blu-ray discs. Running Time: 97 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: October 15, 2024.
