Land of the Dead

2005 / 93min / 35mm

After several years consigned to no-budget limbo, Romero came roaring back into multiplexes with this, the fourth film in his Living Dead cycle, which finds the human survivors of the zombie apocalypse in one unnamed city having returned to business as usual in their urban island, walled off from the surrounding sea of very hungry animate corpses—“business as usual” including the maintenance of a vast difference between the haves, residing in a shiny high-rise that boasts a luxury shopping mall, and the have-nots, left to squabble in the streets. Dennis Hopper is in fine fettle as the honcho of the Fiddler’s Green complex, as is John Leguizamo, playing his ambitious lackey, and Asia Argento, as a feisty sans-culotte… and as for the viscera, well, they’ve never been slimier and more plentiful. Bon appetite!

“Romero’s latter-day zombie sequel celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2025 to little notice, same as this excellent, prescient movie received when it came out. With its cast of talented actors (John Leguizamo, Asia Argento, Dennis Hopper, Robert Joy) going beyond the call of duty, this late Romero has proven over time to be as dead-on about American society as his earlier zombie masterpieces became. I consider it one of the best American films of the 21st century.” —A. S. Hamrah

Distributor: Universal

Introduction by writer A. S. Hamrah on Saturday, January 31st

Part of n+1 Presents an A. S. Hamrah Double Bill