Land of the Dead (also known as
George A. Romero's Land of the Dead) is a
horror filmHorror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness...
by
directorA film director, or filmmaker is a person who directs the making or production of a film. Some also consider a film producer to be a filmmaker....
George A. RomeroGeorge Andrew Romero is an American film director, screenwriter, editor and occasional actor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed Grandfather of the Zombie....
, the fourth of Romero's six
Living DeadLiving Dead is a blanket term for various films and series that all originated with the seminal 1968 zombie movie Night of the Living Dead created by George A. Romero and John A. Russo....
movies. It is preceded by
Night of the Living DeadNight of the Living Dead is a 1968 independent black-and-white zombie film directed by George A. Romero. Ben and Barbra are the protagonists of a story about the mysterious reanimation of the recently dead, and their efforts, along with five other people, to survive the night while trapped in a...
,
Dawn of the Dead and
Day of the DeadDay of the Dead is a 1985 horror film by director George A. Romero, the third of Romero's Living Dead movies. It is preceded by Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Steve Miner directed a remake which was released on February 15, 2008. Director George A...
, and succeeded by
Diary of the DeadDiary of the Dead, also known as George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, is a 2007 American horror film by George A. Romero. Although independently produced, it was distributed theatrically by Dimension Films and was released in cinemas on February 15, 2008 and on DVD by The Weinstein Company and...
and
Survival of the Dead. It was released in 2005 and became a success, grossing over $40 million, and had a budget of $16 million, the highest in the series.
The story of
Land of the Dead deals with a
zombieA zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer...
assault on
Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh is a city in and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the second largest city in the state. Its population was 334,563 at the 2000 census; by 2006, it was estimated to have fallen to 312,819. The population of the seven-county metropolitan area is...
, where a feudal like government exists. The survivors in the film have fled to the city. The city is protected on three sides by a large
riverA river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water...
and on the other by an electric barricade. Like
Day of the Dead,
Land of the Dead plays on the theme that humanity is a greater danger to itself than any outside threat.
Released on June 24, 2005 in North America,
Land of the Dead received mostly positive reviews from film critics.
Plot
Some time ago, a catastrophe destroyed much of human civilization. The recently dead, for an unknown reason, had returned to life and took the lives of the living. These "zombies" multiplied rapidly by adding to their ranks with every new victim. Several years later, the dead greatly outnumber the living. Many of the living in the vicinity have fled to the city of
Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh is a city in and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the second largest city in the state. Its population was 334,563 at the 2000 census; by 2006, it was estimated to have fallen to 312,819. The population of the seven-county metropolitan area is...
, where a feudal-like government has taken hold. Bordered on three sides by a large river and on the other by an electric barricade, the city has become a sanctuary against the undead threat.
Fiddler's GreenFiddler's Green is a legendary afterlife imagined by servicemen, where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing, and dancers who never tire. Its origins are obscure, although some point to the Greek myth of the "Elysian Fields" as a potential inspiration.- Adoption among US...
, the center of this city, is where the rich and powerful live in luxury while the rest of the population in the city lives in poverty. Paul Kaufman (
Dennis HopperDennis Lee Hopper is an American actor, filmmaker and artist, with a career that spanned half of the 20th century. Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1955, and appeared in two films also featuring...
) rules the city with an
iron fistIron Fist is a fictional character, a comic book superhero in the Marvel Comics universe, and a practitioner of martial arts...
and overwhelming firepower.
Kaufman financed the construction of
Dead Reckoning, a heavily armored vehicle that can venture out into the world of the dead with relative ease. Armed with remote-controlled external heavy machine guns and video cameras to spot zombies on the sides,
Dead Reckoning primarily functions as a moving fireworks display base: zombies are fascinated by fireworks, and, just like humans, will stare gaping at them while ignoring the humans moving through the streets around them. Riley Denbo (
Simon BakerSimon Baker is an Australian film and television actor. He is currently the star of the CBS television series The Mentalist.-Early life:...
), both the designer and commander of
Dead Reckoning, has recently retired. Unlike Kaufman, Denbo is respected by the citizens of the city for his work in protecting them from danger, as well as bringing them critical food and medical supplies, things which they can no longer acquire for themselves. This is the purpose of the "Dead Reckoning," and the teams that accompany it. However, Denbo discovers that the man he got a car from, Chihuahua (
Phil FondacaroPhil Fondacaro is an American actor. A dwarf actor at , Fondacaro began acting in 1981, with the film Under the Rainbow....
), is responsible for the car's disappearance. Denbo then discovers Chihuahua trying to feed Slack (
Asia ArgentoAsia Aria Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento is an Italian television and film actress and director.-Family and early life:...
), a hooker, to zombies. Angered at this, Riley and Charlie (
Robert Joy-Life and career:Joy was born in Montreal, Quebec, but grew up in Newfoundland. He is the son of Flora Louise and Clifton Joseph Joy.He attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Memorial University of Newfoundland....
) save Slack and kill the man Riley was to get his car from so he could travel out of the Green. The three are soon arrested and taken to jail, where Slack reveals she was to be killed by zombies on Kaufman's orders, because she is actually an agent for Mulligan (
Bruce McFeeBruce McFee is a Scottish politician. A member of the Scottish National Party he was elected to the Scottish Parliament to represent the West of Scotland at the 2003 election....
). Mulligan is an Irishman who once worked with Riley, but now has turned against Kaufman's class society and is trying to gather rebels among the poor. Part of his anger may be that he has no way, aside from Riley's supplies, to gain antibiotics for his infirm son.
Meanwhile, Cholo DeMora (
John LeguizamoJohn Alberto Leguizamo is an Alma and Emmy Award winning Colombian-American comedian, actor, voice actor and producer.-Early life:...
), the second in command of the
Dead Reckoning team, having been turned down by Kaufman from buying an apartment in
Fiddler's Green, has gone renegade. Having his dreams shattered by Kaufman - for whom he has been secretly employed (among his tasks the disposal of the corpses of Kaufman's murdered enemies) - Cholo is out to even the score. He threatens to destroy
Fiddler's Green with the
Dead Reckoning, which he manages to hijack the vehicle, along with Pretty Boy (Joanne Boland), Mouse (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), Anchor (Tony Munch) and Foxy (Tony Nappo) who all believe in his cause. His threat stands unless his demands are met. Zombies attack as he is leaving, but Cholo doesn't care and orders his crew to drive away without intervening. Kaufman turns to Riley to stop Cholo from exacting his revenge. He is assigned three other officers, Manolete (
Sasha RoizSasha Roiz is a Canadian actor.Roiz was born in Jaffa, Israel to Russian Jewish parents. The family moved to Montreal, Canada in 1980. Roiz studied history before joining a theatre school in Montreal...
), Motown (Krista Bridges) and Pillsbury (
Pedro Miguel ArcePedro Miguel Arce, sometimes credited as Pedro Arce, is a film and television actor. He is known for his roles in Land of the Dead and Get Rich or Die Tryin, as well as television appearances in CSI: Miami, and How I Met Your Mother.-Early life:Born and raised in Managua, Nicaragua, Pedro moved to...
), all of whom work for Kaufman and provide escort. After Manolete is bitten, Riley interrogates the other two, making his position quite clear to them. He has a tracking device, so that he knows where to find the "Dead Reckoning." They get there, and wait. He goes only with Charlie, leaving the other three behind. Motown wants to stop him, but Pillsbury betrays her and knocks her out, then gives Slack safe escort to follow Riley. When Riley finally catches Cholo, he is very nearly killed by Cholo, while the crew caught in the crossfire, including Slack, who moves for Riley's defense. Motown arrives, and is attacked by a zombie. Her death provides a distraction, so Riley shuts down "Dead Reckoning's ability to use its weapons. With that, Riley convinces him to allow him to take
Dead Reckoning and leave the city to head north. Cholo elects to take the Woody, another jeep and to go west, Foxy decides to go with him, however shortly after this Cholo is bitten by a zombie. Cholo leaves for the city, wanting to finish off Kauffman, Foxy takes the Woody and drives him to the entrance, before heading to Cleveland. During this, Riley and his crew then notice fires in the city and head back to try and save the city.
Meanwhile, zombies seem to have resumed aspects of their past lives: a former brass band blows ineffectively on their aging horns, a cheerleader carries her pompoms, a dead couple walk hand-in-hand. A leader has risen among their ranks; "Big Daddy" (
Eugene ClarkEugene Clark is an American film and television actor. Before he began acting, he played college football. He was an all-conference offensive guard at UCLA and was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the ninth round of the 1975 NFL Draft...
), a former gas station owner who continues to amble out to the pumps every time a fellow zombie causes the bell to ring, takes center stage as the undead protagonist. Unusually aware and intelligent, Big Daddy (in a continuance of the "Bub" plot-line from
Day of the DeadDay of the Dead is a 1985 horror film by director George A. Romero, the third of Romero's Living Dead movies. It is preceded by Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Steve Miner directed a remake which was released on February 15, 2008. Director George A...
) directs some of his fellow zombies to use firearms and overcome the more rudimentary human defenses. The zombies are beginning to learn, adapt, and even to communicate with primitive moans and grunts. In retaliation for the constant raids carried out by
Dead Reckoning, Big Daddy ultimately leads the zombies in a massive assault on the human city when he realizes that the zombies can simply walk on the bottom of the riverbed underneath the water to reach the humans. The center of the carnage takes place at
Fiddler's GreenFiddler's Green is a legendary afterlife imagined by servicemen, where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing, and dancers who never tire. Its origins are obscure, although some point to the Greek myth of the "Elysian Fields" as a potential inspiration.- Adoption among US...
. Kaufman witnesses his kingdom coming to pieces before his very eyes as the zombies overcome the humans in a bloody massacre. As the zombies overtake the city, the humans discover that the electric fence defenses previously used to keep the zombies out have now become a wall to keep them in.
As retribution after being shot by Kaufman, Big Daddy trails the fleeing despot to an underground garage where Kaufman plans to escape in a Lincoln Continental. Big Daddy finds Kaufman's car next to a gas pump and, in a moment of revelation, Big Daddy begins pumping gas into the cab through a hole in the windshield. Apparently satisfied, he lumbers out of the garage. Cholo, now reanimated, manages to track Kaufman down. He confronts him in the garage and uses his trademark speargun for a short duel, he then discards it and bites him. However, Big Daddy is not finished; he displays his intelligence once again when he rolls a burning object toward Kaufman's gasoline-soaked vehicle. It explodes, incinerating both Kaufman and the undead Cholo.
Meanwhile, Denbo and
Dead Reckoning have fought to free the inhabitants of the now-overtaken city. At the electric fence, the crew discovers a massacre; with nowhere to run, impoverished and elite alike became a walking dead
smorgasbordSmörgåsbord is a type of Scandinavian meal served buffet-style with multiple dishes of various foods on a table. In Norway it is called koldtbord and in Denmark it is called kolde bord. Smörgåsbord became internationally known as Smorgasbord at the 1939 New York World's Fair when it was offered...
. Destroying the fence, however, the crew finds that some of the city's lower-class inhabitants had followed Mulligan, who led them to a safe shelter elsewhere. This small group had survived. After the zombies destroy the class system created by Kaufman by killing most of the city's elite ranks, the playing field is leveled and the zombies withdraw. After the attack, it seems like most of the population of the city have survived. During all this Anchor is nearly killed by a legless zombie, however Pillsbury saves him. Pretty Boy, the driver of the "Dead Reckoning," gets a clear shot at Big Daddy as the zombies leave, but Riley orders her to stop, because, like him, they're "just looking for a place to go." Denbo and his friends leave the city with the
Dead Reckoning, striking out for the north. As they leave, they fire all of
Dead Reckoning's fireworks (which they won't need anymore now that they have lost their captivating effect on the undead) in a display of celebration.
Cast
- Simon Baker
Simon Baker is an Australian film and television actor. He is currently the star of the CBS television series The Mentalist.-Early life:...
as Riley Denbo
- John Leguizamo
John Alberto Leguizamo is an Alma and Emmy Award winning Colombian-American comedian, actor, voice actor and producer.-Early life:...
as Cholo DeMora
- Asia Argento
Asia Aria Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento is an Italian television and film actress and director.-Family and early life:...
as Slack
- Robert Joy
-Life and career:Joy was born in Montreal, Quebec, but grew up in Newfoundland. He is the son of Flora Louise and Clifton Joseph Joy.He attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Memorial University of Newfoundland....
as Charlie Houk
- Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper is an American actor, filmmaker and artist, with a career that spanned half of the 20th century. Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1955, and appeared in two films also featuring...
as Paul Kaufman
- Eugene Clark
Eugene Clark is an American film and television actor. Before he began acting, he played college football. He was an all-conference offensive guard at UCLA and was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the ninth round of the 1975 NFL Draft...
, as Big Daddy
- Jennifer Baxter
Jennifer Baxter is a Canadian actress and comedian formerly based out of Toronto and currently living in Los Angeles with her husband Mike Beaver....
as Number 9
- Boyd Banks
Boyd Banks is a Canadian stand-up comedian known for doing edgy material, and an actor who has appeared in such films as Wild Iris , Dawn of the Dead , Phil the Alien , Land of the Dead , Cinderella Man , Diary of The Dead and Pontypool...
as Butcher
- Joanne Boland as Pretty Boy
- Krista Bridges as Motown
- Pedro Miguel Arce
Pedro Miguel Arce, sometimes credited as Pedro Arce, is a film and television actor. He is known for his roles in Land of the Dead and Get Rich or Die Tryin, as well as television appearances in CSI: Miami, and How I Met Your Mother.-Early life:Born and raised in Managua, Nicaragua, Pedro moved to...
as Pillsbury
- Sasha Roiz
Sasha Roiz is a Canadian actor.Roiz was born in Jaffa, Israel to Russian Jewish parents. The family moved to Montreal, Canada in 1980. Roiz studied history before joining a theatre school in Montreal...
as Manolete
- Alan van Sprang
Alan van Sprang is an actor best known for playing Sir Francis Bryan in the series The Tudors and for appearing in the "...Dead" films of George A. Romero. He has many other television and film credits....
as Brubaker
- Phil Fondacaro
Phil Fondacaro is an American actor. A dwarf actor at , Fondacaro began acting in 1981, with the film Under the Rainbow....
as Chihuahua
- Earl Pastko
Earl Pastko is a Canadian actor best known for roles in Highway 61 and The Sweet Hereafter....
as Roach
- Peter Outerbridge
Peter Outerbridge is a Canadian actor, best known for his role as Dr. David Sandstrom in the TMN series ReGenesis.-Early life:...
as Styles
- Gene Mack as Knipp,Kaufman's manservant
- Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer and director. He is best known for his starring roles in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Run Fatboy Run, the comedy series Spaced and his recent portrayal of Scotty in Star Trek...
as Photo Booth Zombie
- Edgar Wright
Edgar Wright is an English film and television director and writer. He is most famous for his work with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and TV series Spaced.-Biography:...
as Photo Booth Zombie
- Tom Savini
Thomas Vincent Savini is an American actor, stunt man, director, award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the Living Dead films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Creepshow, The Burning, The Prowler, and Maniac. He directed the 1990 remake of Night of...
as Blades/Machete Zombie
- Gregory Nicotero
Gregory Nicotero is an American special effects creator and actor. In 1988, along with Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger, he formed KNB Efx Group, a special effects studio which has gone on to work on over 400 film and television projects...
as Bridgekeeper Zombie
Production
Earlier script titles included
Twilight of the Dead,
Dead City and
Dead Reckoning (the same as the military vehicle used in the film). Romero said in an interview
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=17989 that one of the first potential film studios (
20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation , also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox, is one of the six major American film studios...
) wanted the film to be titled
Night of the Living Dead. He refused, wanting to use the title
Dead Reckoning, and the studio then wanted to title it
Night of the Living Dead: Dead Reckoning. It turned out that Fox sought to own the rights to
Night of the Living Dead, and Romero decided not to do business with them.
Filming took place in Toronto and
Hamilton, OntarioHamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Rating
It is the first movie in the series to receive an
MPAAThe Motion Picture Association of America , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, is a United States non-profit business and trade association to advance the business interests of movie studios. The MPAA administers the voluntary but dominant MPAA film rating system...
ratingA motion picture rating system is designated to classify films with regard to suitability for audiences in terms of issues such as sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence or other types of mature content. A particular issued rating is called a certification.This is designed to help...
for its theatrical release. Romero had said for years that he would film two versions; an
R rated cut for the theatres and first
DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
, 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 overlayed elements could be easily removed for the unrated DVD. Other ways to obscure blood in order 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.
The
CanadianCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
provinces of
British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada.The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada...
,
ManitobaManitoba is a prairie province in Canada and has an area of . Manitoba is bordered by the provinces of Ontario to the east and Saskatchewan to the west, the territory of Nunavut to the north, and the U.S. states of North Dakota and Minnesota to the south...
and
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
gave both the theatrical version and DVD version a rating of
18A, though it was only given a 13+ rating in
QuebecQuebec is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking identity and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
.
In the
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
the
BBFCThe British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is the organisation legally responsible for film classification within the United Kingdom...
gave it a
15 certificate for both the theatrical version and the unrated version. (The UK "Director's Cut" DVD was rated
18 due to extras being rated higher than the feature itself).
In Germany, both the theatrical and unrated versions were rated
18, rendering the purpose of the cut theatrical version redundant. As such, only the unrated version was widely available in Germany.
The movie was banned in
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
.
Release
The film was met with positive reviews upon release, the film was released one year after the remake of
Dawn of the DeadDawn of the Dead is a American horror remake of George A. Romero's 1978 film of the same name. The remake and original both depict a handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall surrounded by swarms of zombies, but the details differ significantly...
was released international to cinema. The film grossed over 40 million dollars and is second behind
Dawn of the Dead with the highest grossing revenue in the
living dead seriesLiving Dead is a blanket term for various films and series that all originated with the seminal 1968 zombie movie Night of the Living Dead created by George A. Romero and John A. Russo....
, the two lowest being
Night of the Living DeadNight of the Living Dead is a 1968 independent black-and-white zombie film directed by George A. Romero. Ben and Barbra are the protagonists of a story about the mysterious reanimation of the recently dead, and their efforts, along with five other people, to survive the night while trapped in a...
(1968) and
Diary of the DeadDiary of the Dead, also known as George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, is a 2007 American horror film by George A. Romero. Although independently produced, it was distributed theatrically by Dimension Films and was released in cinemas on February 15, 2008 and on DVD by The Weinstein Company and...
(2008).
Day of the DeadDay of the Dead is a 1985 horror film by director George A. Romero, the third of Romero's Living Dead movies. It is preceded by Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Steve Miner directed a remake which was released on February 15, 2008. Director George A...
, which preceded
Land of the Dead by twenty years, flopped when released.
Land of the Dead had a budget estimated of 15 million dollars, unlike
Day of the Dead which had a budget of 3.5 million dollars.
Reception
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter.He is known for his film review column and for two television programs Sneak Previews and Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel...
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 that contained numerous satirical metaphors to the reality of American life. In this installment Ebert noted the similarities between the fireworks mesmerizing the
zombieA zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer...
s and the shock and awe tactics applied during the
2003 Invasion of IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq, was led by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, Poland and Spain. Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from March 20 to May 1...
and the movie's distinction between the rich and poor, those that live in Fiddler's Green and those that live in the slums, something he considered to be Romero's take on the rising gap between rich and poor in America. Michael Wilmington of
Chicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company...
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 film-makers including
Eli RothEli Raphael Roth is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is part of the group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack, because of their association and their focus on the horror genre...
and
Guillermo del ToroGuillermo del Toro Gómez is an Academy Award-nominated Mexican director, producer, screenwriter and designer whose work has gained both critical acclaim and a devoted fanbase. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator...
paid tribute to George Romero in a
Land of the Dead special.
Guillermo del ToroGuillermo del Toro Gómez is an Academy Award-nominated Mexican director, producer, screenwriter and designer whose work has gained both critical acclaim and a devoted fanbase. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator...
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
MichelangeloMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer...
has started another ceiling. It's really a momentous occasion ..."
Overall critical reaction was mostly positive; the film received very favorable reviews from
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
,
The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood Reporter is an American trade publication of the entertainment industry. During the last century it was one of the two major publications — the other being Variety. Today both newspapers cover what is now more broadly called the entertainment industry.- History :The Hollywood Reporter...
,
Premiere (magazine)Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there....
,
VarietyVariety is a weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the Daily...
,
SlateSlate is an English-language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft, as part of MSN. On December 21, 2004, it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
and
Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California since 1881. It is distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the fourth-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States...
. The film earned a 74% positive rating at the
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films. The name derives from the historical cliché of throwing tomatoes and other produce at stage performers if a performance was particularly bad.- History :...
movie-review compilation website (though the "Cream of the Crop" critics' reactions were slightly more mixed, giving the film a 68% rating overall).
External links