They’re coming to get you!

Shout! Factory deadens up Halloween

George A. Romero became the father of the zombie genre with his 1968 “Night of the Living Dead.” The film largely defined the rules as we know them today—not counting the debate over the relative merits of shambling, mournful zombies vs. the feral, Olympic sprinter variety. (I’m team shamble.)

A decade after “Night,” Romero returned with “Dawn of the Dead,” expanding on the scope of the original’s black-and-white claustrophobia and its unflinching social commentary. The newly bloody, sinew-ripping, gut-munching gore was rendered in jarring ‘70s primary colors. “Dawn’s” cast is bigger, trapped in a bigger place—and it becomes clear that humans are losing the war for the world. Romero’s sociopolitical themes are a cynical allegory of consumer culture and humanity’s self-destructive myopia.

The third entry, 1985’s “Day of the Dead,” expanded on that last bit, finding a team of scientists and military goons working together to save the human race, and failing utterly because, people. 

Twenty years later, in 2005, Romero dropped “Land of the Dead,” a vastly underrated return to form. I’m one of the heretics who gets bored by the one-note ugliness of “Day.”

In “Land,” civilization has risen in Pittsburgh, though it’s hinted there are other outposts. Unfortunately, it’s run by a sleazy mafia-style boss, Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) from a luxury skyscraper that’s home to the city’s elite. When his paramilitary arm, led by the benevolent Riley (Simon Baker) discover that the dead are starting to communicate and even think, they are forced to take sides to save the poverty-stricken serfs who pack the feudalistic slums, from Kaufman and the dead. Here the themes are of classism, persecution, and income inequality, wrapped in Romero’s best looking film.

Both “Dawn” and “Land of the Dead” come to Shout! Factory Blu Ray on October 31, with pristine new masters struck from the original negatives (“Land” is in 2K, and boasts an uncut version). Typical of their releases, both sets are packed with documentaries, interviews, deleted scenes, and extensive commentaries. It’s basically film school in a box.

Romero did make two subsequent “Dead” films before he joined their ranks this year. Neither rise to the level of “Land,” or the films before it. But there was always something comforting in the knowledge that he was still tending his garden. RIP, man.