This evening I watched Land Of The Dead, George A. Romero’s long-awaited follow-up of the classic zombie trilogy. I don’t know why, but I do like zombie films like Night of the Living Dead and the pseudo-zombie films like 28 Days Later and Resident Evil. Maybe its the black humour, the thrills and excitement or just the pleasure of seeing Jayne jump out of her skin every 5 minutes, but the Romero films have a little something extra.

Anyone who dismisses the George A. Romero zombie films as just ‘video nasties’ or mindless gore has either not seen them or was not paying attention, because he manages to slip a bit of social commentary into his films.

Night of the Living Dead is widely seen to challenge contemporary (1968) attitudes towards race, by having a black lead character, and Dawn of the Dead is just one big comment on consumerism. Day of the Dead continues a theme from the other films about the importance of mutual support and co-operation in the face of adversity.

Land of the Dead has a distinctly socialist, even Marxist, theme to it.

The surviving humans have barricaded themselves into a large chunk of a city, sending raiding parties out into the zombie-infested countryside to gather supplies from abandoned shops. So far so good, but the shock comes when the film reveals how these surviving humans have organised themselves in their secure area.

The film starts with one of these raiding parties and their return to the city. We see them go back to their society which all looks suitably post-apocalyptic and the sort of dystopian vision we might expect. But then it all takes a strange turn when we find that a shining skyscraper contains the elite in sumptuous apartments, with every luxury including servants. The inhabitants still wear suits, and spend their time in the attached mall shopping and having coffee.

Excercising the necessary willing suspension of disbelief which Samuel Taylor Coleridge recommends, I managed to stop wondering where they continued to get fuel for their vehicles, ammunition for their guns, and electricity for their lights and elevators, not to mention food that doesn’t come in a can and all the other things which are only possible in an industrialised society.

But I could not help wondering at this point how the majority of the survivors alllowed a few people – those with the least to offer in practical survival terms – to set themselves up in a privileged position and to be in control. It did not take much to realise that this is how normal society is structured. The next logical step would be to wonder why we allow ourselves to be dominated by a tiny minority who contribute little in practical terms: a dangerously subversive subtext for an American film!

The top man in all this is played superbly by Dennis Hopper, and in an interview on the DVD extras he admitted that he based his character on Donald Rumsfeld, and Romero said that his inspiration for it was the Bush administration. There are also suggestions that some aspects of the film are sly digs at US ‘shock and awe’ tactics in the Gulf and Afghanistan, and their ultimate futility.

The interesting thing for me was how this seemd to apply not only to how the elite were in relation to the masses, but how the human survivors were in relation to the zombies. In this film the zombies themselves are starting to evolve and show some signs of communication, co-operation and logical actions with a suggestion at the end that there may be a way for them to co-exist with the humans. In a suitably provocative echo of the original film, the main zombie, who seems to be the most intelligent, and who is providing leadership and inspiration for them is black.

The film certainly provides much to think about, but even if you are not in the mood for thinking there is plenty of action to keep you busy and the best make-up I have seen, not to mention some truly disgusting special effects. Whether you are just after thrills or something thought-provoking its a film worth watching.

Long live zombies!