"Night of the Living Dead" is one of the very creepiest movies ever made. "Dawn of the Dead" is both creepy and funny. "Day of the Dead" is not as good as those two, and this one is really disappointing. It looks and plays more like bad John Carpenter than like the great George Romero. Even for a zombie movie the plot is ridiculously skimpy and slack, and the "social commentary" that helped make "Night" and "Dawn" so good has become awfully juvenile. The decision to make the zombies a little smarter and more organized this time is a disaster: What was so frightening about them before was precisely that they were brainless, soulless former humans driven only by hunger, like human insects. Now they're just working-class stiffs revolting against their upper-class masters--ooo, spooky! Worst, though, is that this one totally lacks Romero's trademark atmosphere of dread--this just plays like a bunch of actors and extras going through the jerky motions in a lot of Halloween make-up. There isn't a scary or unself-conscious moment in it. As "Escape from L.A." is to "Escape from New York," "Land of the Dead" is to Romero's previous movies: a clanking, self- conscious homage to its own genre. All props to Romero as the godfather of zombie pics, but he's been way outgunned lately by "28 Days Later" and "Shaun of the Dead," both much creepier, scarier and funnier. Only the diehards could consider this one a "classic."
Review of Land of the Dead
