Romero's 'Dead' rise again

George Romero invented the modern zombie film (and some say modern horror cinema) with "Night of the Living Dead" in 1968 -- a classic that packed just as many visceral scares as it did volleys of social commentary on relationships between different races and sexes. In 1978, he fashioned a barbed, zombie-filled critique of American consumer culture with "Dawn of the Dead," and in 1985 he took on unfounded Cold War paranoia with "Day of the Dead." With "Land of the Dead," Romero has once again concocted a gore fest specifically for the age in which we live.\nDuring the opening titles, we learn that the dead rose "some time ago," and soon we find out how the people of one particular unnamed city have learned to deal with the zombie menace. A rigid class system has been set up, with the rich taking shelter in a massive skyscraper known as Fiddler's Green, and run by the merciless Kaufman (Dennis Hopper, in typical creep-out mode). Meanwhile, the middle and lower classes live in the streets, though safely protected by water, electric fence and Kaufman's own personal army. It doesn't take long for Kaufman's designs on "zombieworld" domination to fall apart, and when the flesh-eaters storm the city, Romero and his team of makeup wizards and computer FX men go to town on the pitiful population.\nNever before have we rooted for the undead as we do in "Land," and it's not only because they've acquired rudimentary problem-solving skills, but because the residents of Fiddler's Green are so smug about living so comfortably amidst the horrors going on outside their field of vision. Parallels to the class and political systems in our own society are unmistakable, and with Romero at the helm, almost certainly intentional. Of course we have our heroes in Riley (a stoic Simon Baker), Cholo (a fired-up John Leguizamo), Slack (an adorable Asia Argento) and Charlie (veteran character actor Robert Joy), yet we find ourselves rooting for the zombies, because the world is clearly theirs now. \nAs for the violence, it's brutal a majority of the time, and it seems the only way "Land" was granted an R rating was because most of the gore takes place at nighttime or in the shadows. The shock level still doesn't rise to the grand heights it did in "Dawn" or "Day" either because those films were debuted to a much less desensitized audience, or because back in the day, when he wasn't under the control of a major studio such as Universal, Romero felt freer to languish an extra few seconds on the visceral reaction of his victims being eaten alive. Regardless, "Land's" level of violence may still surprise those who are under the illusion that today's cookie cutter horror/popcorn flicks are actually violent in the least.\nDoes Romero's latest vision of a post-apocalyptic world live up to his previous outings with the genre he created? It certainly surpasses "Day of the Dead." It outdoes "Night of the Living Dead" from a sheer visual and fright standpoint, even if it can never live up to "Night's" historical importance. And while "Dawn of the Dead" will most likely forever remain Romero's personal Mona Lisa, "Land of the Dead" is miles ahead of most horror flicks the major studios are churning out these days, as it boasts Romero at the top of his game once more.