The second trilogy “Of the Dead” films, while not as good as the original, still have some bright spots.

After releasing the final film in his original trilogy of zombie movies, Day of the Dead, George A. Romero took a break from zombie movies throughout the ‘90s. During the early 2000s however, a new zombie craze began to take place in cinema. It was during this craze the granddaddy of the modern day zombie threw his hat into the ring.

The first of the new series, Land of the Dead, continued the story set up in the previous films.

It’s now several years into the zombie infestestation, and humans are somehow still around. They all hold out in what once was Pittsburg. With a combination of an electric barricade, and the river that surrounds the city, they’ve managed to keep out any zombies that might want to get in, save those they use for entertainment.

In the center of the city is Fiddler’s Green, a large hotel where all the rich people live in luxury, which is run by the ruler of the city, Kaufman (played by Dennis Hopper). Outside of Fiddler’s Green, everyone else lives in complete squalor. 

However, tensions arise when Cholo (John Leguizamo), an assassin under Kaufman’s employ who lives outside of Fiddler’s Green, along with some of his men threaten to use their ultimate weapon, The Dead Reckoning (a large van hooked up with enough explosives, large ordinance, and fire power to make an NRA chapter green with envy), to destroy Fiddler’s Green and everyone else in the surrounding area if they are not given $30 million and a boat. 

So Kaufman hires The Dead Reckoning’s creator, Riley (Simon Baker), to go in and deactivate the machine.

While all of that is going on, a large horde of zombies are beginning to make its way to the city.  

What’s strange about the horde is that they’re not attacking to simply feast but for revenge, as several of their kind are being killed by humans. They are being led by a strangely intelligent zombie named “Big Daddy” (Eugene Clark). 

It’s obvious from the synopsis alone, the film has a much more complicated plot than the previous films.

But don’t let that fool you, the film is really just two plots, the human drama, and the zombies’ epic journey to make their way to Fiddler’s Green.

That being said, out of the two plots, strangely enough the zombie plot was more engaging than the human drama. While the human drama isn’t badly written, it still is something we’ve seen before.

What makes the zombie part of the plot more interesting is the character of Big Daddy himself. Even though he’s a zombie, he’s sad and angry over his zombie friends’ deaths, at the same time he’s shown to be smart enough to use tools. 

Big Daddy wouldn’t be as memorable if it wasn’t Eugene Clark’s excellent acting skills. He has to get across several emotions through just grunts, yells, and physical acting.

One big reason the human plot just isn’t as interesting to watch is that the characters just aren’t as interesting, likable, or entertaining as in previous films. The only two that buck this trend is the previously mentioned Cholo, and another character named, Charlie (Robert Joy).

Cholo, while a jerk, still has enough layers to make him interesting. He’s shown to genuinely care for his guys, and actually only stole the Dead Reckoning after Kaufman screwed him over and tried to have him killed after he promised to let him into Fiddler’s Green. 

Charlie is a mentally deficient person who also has a burn scar on his face. However Charlie is a savant when it comes to the accuracy with his rifle, and is a longtime friend of Riley. What makes him interesting is the fact that he actually does help look out for Riley quite a bit in the movie. In most films it would just be Riley looking out for Charlie, with Charlie being next to useless except for one scene.

Uninteresting characters are not the film’s only problem. The film is filled with CGI, and while sometimes the CGI does look good, specifically for backgrounds, whenever they use it for gore or on the zombies it is very noticeable. Which is even more of a shame seeing how the original trilogy had practical effects that still look good.

Because it’s a Romero movie however, it still has that social commentary. The big social commentary in this film is the wage gap, more specifically the wider and wider it’s getting. Along with that it tackles how the institutions up top have made it impossible for people from the bottom to climb up.

The first point is clearly shown by location of the film. Whenever it’s inside Fiddler’s Green it’s immaculate, good food, waiters, and absolute safety. However, when the film takes the audience outside of Fiddler’s Green, it’s a slum. Everyone has barely what they need to survive. Drugs and crime are rampant, and a person needs to kill just to survive.

The second point is brought home when Kaufman refuses to let Cholo live inside the hotel. Even though Cholo risked his life to bring in supplies and even offed some of Kaufman’s enemies, he still is refused access to the hotel.

Land of the Dead, while not perfect, is still a perfectly fine film.

Unfortunately, the next film, Diary of the Dead (2007), is a large step down in quality. 

This film is a reboot of the series. Instead of the zombie epidemic taking place in the ‘60s or ‘70s, the zombie epidemic is instead just starting to spread in the modern day.

The plot follows a student film crew consisting of Jason Creed (Joshua Close), Debra Monahan (Michelle Morgan), Ridley Wilmont (Phillip Riccio), Tony Ravelo (Shawn Roberts), Elliot Stone (Joe Dinicol), Franchine Shane (Megan Park), Gordo Thorson (Chris Violetti), Mary Daxter (Tatiana Maslany), Tracy Thurman (Amy Lalonde), along with their professor Andrew Maxwell (Scott Wentworth). During their filming the living dead start to rise around the world. They decide to get in their RV and to find a safe place.

The film’s big flaw is the manner in which it is shown — Found Footage style. 

Found Footage is not inherently bad like many audiences believe. If done well, found footage is a great way for the audience to get sucked into the story. A good example of it working in a zombie setting is the Spanish film REC.

The problem is that the film uses the found footage format poorly, and instead of sucking a person into the story and world, it does the opposite, constantly pulling the audience out of the story. Romero did things that work well for other ways of filming, but make no sense in the context of found footage.

These film students are apparently expert cameramen in their down time, because whenever they’re filming they are stiff as a board, not a shake to be seen. Film students are also apparently psychics because they always get the exact shot the scene calls for, even if there was no way for them to know to shoot that specific area. 

What’s worse is that later on they find another camera, and the film constantly changes perspectives from one camera to another. This completely defeats the purpose of a found footage film, a film that’s primarily from a certain character’s perspective.

Even weirder is that there’s ambient music, though they do give an explanation for why there is ambient music in the film. 

1. The reason they give is just ridiculous.
2. The film shouldn’t have ambient music to begin with, because it’s found footage.

It also appears that the main characters, other survivors, and even the zombies are apparently mic’d up, because the camera picks up everyone’s dialogue perfectly. 

Found footage is like a magic trick. Logically, a person knows it isn’t real, but if done well the audience won’t care, they’ll be too busy being sucked in by the spectacle. 

The problems don’t end there however, as the acting is not very good. Everyone either overacts or underacts. This is particularly bad for found footage, where the goal is to fool the audience into thinking that this is real life. No offense intended to the actors involved obviously, it’s clear that they did the best with what was written.

Speaking of writing, the characters aren’t nearly as interesting or fun to watch as the previous films. They’re all a bunch of bland college kids, and a professor who has a drinking problem.

Even the film’s message is poorly handled. At first the film says “Mainstream news organizations can’t be trusted, only the common people who record and put things on the internet can be trusted.” But then, the film contradicts itself when it says “There’s too much information for people to tell fact from fiction.” 

The film isn’t all bad however, as the gore, while still mostly CGI, looks good enough to be effective.

It seems like Romero wanted to go back to his indie roots, which is commendable, but it’s clear he did not know how to effectively make a found footage film.

Thankfully the third and final film of the trilogy, Survival of the Dead (2009), is a step up in quality.

The film picks up several weeks into the zombie epidemic set up in Diary of the Dead, and follows a group of deserter soldiers consisting of Sergeant “Sarge” Crockett (Alan Van Sprang), Kenny (Eric Woolfe), Francisco (Stefano Colacitti) and Tomboy (Athena Karkanis), along with a young man they pick simply named “Boy” (Devon Bostick).

They’re tricked into going to an island off the coast of Delaware by Patrick O’Flynn (Kenneth Welsh), who’s forced to tag along. 

It turns out that O’Flynn got exiled from the island after having a fundamental disagreement with the island’s ruler and head of a rival family, Seamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick), over what to do with the recently revived dead. O’Flynn wanted to kill all living dead on sight, to keep the island safe. Muldoon wanted to chain them up and keep them alive, in case a cure is found.

The military deserters are caught in between two families, both of whom hate each other, and who are about to go to war.

The film is thankfully no longer in found footage.

Instead it takes its film influence from old west movies. The rival families are similar to the real life family rivalry between the Hatfield and McCoy families; the film is shot in a wide landscape similar to many old west films; and both families only use revolvers and lever action rifles.

This is in contrast to the deserters who really didn’t care about the feud till one of the families started shooting at them, and who are armed with modern day rifles.

The film’s characters are thankfully more likeable and as fun to watch as the previous film, but still aren’t anything special. You have the gruff military leader, the best friend, the woman, the flirtatious Spaniard, and the young and impulsive kid who gets into trouble.

Gratefully, the acting is also much better than the last film, and while it’s still nothing special, it’s much better than last film’s over- and underacting.

The moral conundrum of the film, while interesting, isn’t handled very well. As the film does a good job to make the audience dislike Muldoon, and point out all the flaws in his line of thinking, it doesn’t do as well with O’Flynn. At worst he’s a bit too forceful with the fact that they need to kill the zombies for their own safety. 

The sequel Romero trilogy, while not as good as the original still has some good elements worth watching.