Land of the Dead

“Land of the Dead” opens up with something of an anomaly: The ancient Universal Logo that was used back in the days when “King Kong” was a brand-spanking-new film.

This is followed by a few more credits, and then a burn-in: “Some Time Ago.”

From there, we get black-and-white footage of “the recent past,” with an old-fashioned radio broadcasting various and sundry voices, who explain what we’ve learned in the last three movies.

In other words, anyone dead gets up and kills, as long as anyone is alive they’re essentially a food source, you have to knock out the brain of the creatures to kill them, and so on.

Finally, black-and-white turns to color, and we get another burn-in: Today.

Man, I hope not. I’m a little nervous to look out the window now.

At any rate, as the movie really begins, we’re in a park, where a bunch of zombies are shuffling around. Except for the one playing the tuba. He’s mostly just standing there, playing the tuba.

At a nearby gas station, a zombie steps on that little hose that tells the dude inside that there’s someone outside who needs his gas pumped.

A black zombie steps outside, picks up the gas pump, and looks around for a vehicle to fill. But of course, there isn’t one. Unless that other zombie is headed off to grab a car and drive it over.

In the nearby bushes, two dudes who are not dead debate what the creatures are up to. One of them says they’re learning to be “us,” by which he means living, breathing, people.

The Black Zombie sees the two men in the bushes and does a large grunt at some other zombies, who turn towards the Black Zombie.

The two dudes realize that now would be a good time to go.

Elsewhere, a bunch of dudes dump crates filled with “trash,” at a dump site. One fellow notes that there’s a lot of trash, while another points out that the trick is to not end up as part of it.

Since one of the boxes is bleeding, I’m guessing the “trash” in question is, or was, some version of human.

And then we’re back with the two dudes who were spying on the Black Zombie. They’re walking towards what looks like the band of raiders from “Day of the Dead,” but which is in fact a group of professional raiders. As opposed to the amateur ones from “Day.”

Behind the two dudes, another guy who looks semi-dead stalks up behind them. One dude turns around, and the not-zombie asks if the kid is any good with his gun.

Thanks to the subtitles, we learn that the guy who did NOT draw his gun is named Riley, and the dude doing the stalking is Charlie, who claims he was only doing it because he doesn’t like it when Riley heads off without him.

Charlie, by the way, has something of a messed-up face.

Riley talks to someone on the radio, and tells them to “Put some flowers in the graveyard.”

Which, apparently, means, “Set off some fireworks to distract the zombies.”

Charlie asks why they call them flowers. It’s a whole long thing. You don’t really want to know. They’re just babbling for a bit anyway, so that Riley and crew can get to a nearby jeep, which is sitting in front of… I don’t even know what to call it.

The words written on the side say, “Dead Reckoning,” so I guess I’ll call it that. It looks like what you’d get if a school bus and a tank mated.

And here comes the dude dumping garbage and talking Spanish from earlier. His name is Cholo, and he and Riley do a whole back-and-forth thing that basically comes down to:

Riley: Hey, these zombies are communicating with each other. Also, don’t screw up, this is my last night in command.

Cholo: These things are stupid, and they are NOT talking to each other. And it’s my last night, too.

The New Kid gets on a motorcycle with Cholo, and he asks why they go out at night, instead of the daytime. Cholo says that the zombies can’t take their eyes off the fireworks.

Did I mention they’re here to raid the local town for supplies? No? Because neither did they, really, but it’s kind of implied.

The group rolls out, and the zombies just stand around, watching the fireworks. Except for the Black Zombie, who seems seriously miffed about the fact that no one is watching all the living people driving through the town.

Black Zombie grabs one of his compatriots by the head just as a biker blows off his body. The head looks at the Black Zombie, who throws it to the ground and crushes it.

You know, Black Zombie needs a name, or something. I think I’ll call him Buzz, in memory of Bub, who is still probably running around in Florida somewhere, looking for more soldiers to eat.

The raid commences, with people taking food and medicine. Then, suddenly, the fireworks stop firing, and the zombies stop looking at the sky.

This is Not Good.

Riley tells everyone to get out of town, while Dead Reckoning lays down some cover.

Dead Reckoning is being driven by Pretty Boy. Who’s a girl. Just FYI.

Riley contacts Cholo, who says he’s picking up some supplies. By supplies, he means booze, which sells for a lot of money back at… wherever they live.

Cholo is there with a guy named Foxy and a guy everyone calls The Kid, who doesn’t have a name, so he’ll be dead soon. Real soon.

Cholo goes to get something of a fridge in a liquor store, and gets attacked by a zombie. Foxy and The Kid try to help Cholo, but Cholo grabs his weapon and deals with the zombie.

Then Cholo knocks some cigars onto the floor, and tells The Kid to pick them up. The kid does, and a zombie takes a bite out of him.

The Kid runs outside, where Cholo and Foxy are loading up the hooch. Riley and Charlie pull up in their jeep. Riley shoots the zombie that bit The Kid.

He then goes to help The Kid, only The Kid jams a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. I’d say his chances of recovering just went down pretty significantly.

Riley and Cholo exchange meaningful looks. Cholo and Foxy drive away.

Riley radios everyone to cease fire, pack it up, and call it a night.

Everyone drives out of town, really, really, really angering Buzz.

As everyone drives away, Buzz moans at them loudly. Then heads after them, with his various zombie buddies following along behind him. And did I mention he’s now carrying a semi-automatic weapon?

Okay, the next couple bits are a little jumbled, but it comes down to this:

Riley is mad at Cholo, since Cholo is responsible for the kid’s death. Cholo says the kid knew the risks, that they all know the risks, and that he’s going to be moving on up.

Moving on up to what?

Well, there’s a commercial on the TV talking about that – it’s called Fiddler’s Green, and it’s a big old building in the middle of the city where all the people with money live now.

Cholo thinks he’s going to move in there. Riley says it’ll never happen, they’re “the wrong kind.” I’d think it’s a racial thing, only Riley is white. So I’m at a loss as to what “The Wrong Kind” means. I’m guessing it’s a poor people issue, but if everyone is dead, how does one define wealth?

Cholo takes the cigars and liquor to some kind of office area, where a man behind a barred window asks Cholo what he’s doing. Cholo says he’s brought essential supplies for Kaufman.

Moments later, Cholo is in the middle of a massive way-upscale mall-type place, with shopping and eating and other such things. Imagine a mall for adults. Like that.

Cholo looks out of place, carrying his booze.

Elsewhere, Riley and Charlie walk through the deserted streets until they end up on some not-deserted streets, where a few scattered military guys let them into the area.

The area is a massive outdoor market, only with prostitutes among the other goods and services.

Charlie asks if Riley wants a drink, but Riley says he has to go see a man about a car.

Elsewhere, a handful of people in military garb explain how the city stays protected. It’s protected by water, for the most part, plus a half-mile electric fence. A zombie walks into the fence and starts on fire. So, you know, clearly this method works.

Inside the market/slum, a dude named Mulligan tries to get people to join forces with him, to storm Fiddler’s Green and take it over. Riley and Charlie show up, and Mulligan asks them the join his forces.

If I knew a dude named Mulligan, every time he did something stupid, I’d be like, “Hey dude. Do you want to take a you?”

Riley gives Mulligan antibiotics for his sick kid.

Inside Fiddler’s Green, Cholo goes into Kaufman’s apartment, where he encounters the black butler. Or whatever he is. The butler heard crying, so Cholo goes to investigate the apartment across the hall.

Cholo finds a dead man, who’s an older dude, hanging by his neck from a ceiling lamp.

Cholo gets ready to re-kill the dead guy once the dead guy wakes up, only the dead guy’s wife comes around the corner (she was the one crying) along with the dead guy’s son, who sets up the chair the dead guy jumped off when hanging himself, and tries to help his father.

Only the dead guy wakes up, and takes a bite out of his own kid.

Cholo tries to keep the dead guy’s wife quiet through all of this.

Then he clubs the dead guy back into death with a heavy statue.

Security shows up, armed and ready to do some killin’, and Cholo says it’s security’s problem now.

Out in the slum, Riley goes to get his car, only his car isn’t there.

So he heads to the slum’s version of Vegas, which has gambling, drugs, ladies in cages, and a chance to have your photo taken with a live zombie.

Riley approaches a fellow named Roach, and asks where Chihuahua is.

Roach tells him. Then he explains to a couple of folks about a new game, wherein two zombies fight over food.

It goes like this. Two zombie in chains go into a pit with fencing around it. Then they stick a person – in this case, a woman – in there with them and she tries to survive while the zombies fight it out.

This goes on while Riley confronts Chihuahua, who is a little person in a purple suit with a huge hat. Say what you will about George Romero, the man has his demographics covered in this flick.

Chihuahua says he’ll check into the missing car. Then he goes to the bar, and orders a drink and his gun.

Riley stands around waiting, when he hears a scream and notices that a person is trapped in a cage with two creatures that want to eat her, and that this totally isn’t Babylonian times, so that probably shouldn’t be happening.

He pulls out a gun and shoots both zombies in the head. Chihuahua takes aim at Riley and tries to shoot him, but shoots another guy instead.

Chihuahua takes another shot at Riley, only the woman he just saved kicks him in the head and knocks him to the ground. She appears to take the bullet meant for Riley, but it’s just her arm, so she’ll live.

Chihuahua runs around the gate to go shoot Riley. Only Charlie has pulled his gun, and he takes aim, and he shoots Chihuahua right in the noggin.

Riley shoots the lock off the fence, and goes to help the person he just saved. He sees that she’s bleeding, and gets ready to shoot her in the head. She sits up, and yeah, she’s just been shot in the arm, so she says she’s all right.

They both do a, “I’ve seen you around” kind of thing, and then guards come running in, and arrest Riley.

And Charlie, and what’s-her-name.

Oh. Slack. Thanks, subtitles.

Charlie asks Slack how she ended up in the cage with the zombies. First, she spouts some exposition about how Kaufman runs and owns everything, and then she follows that up with how she got thrown in the zombie cage for helping Mulligan and his people.

More information comes out. Riley plans to head North, to Canada. He wants to be where there are no people.

Charlie says he might be able to come along, because he’s useful.

Slack says she can be useful, too. She was training to be a member of the army before they figured out she’d make a better lady of the evening.

I don’t even want to ask how someone makes that determination.

Riley says he doesn’t want to hear her story.

But hey, it’s time for a new prisoner. Mulligan. A couple cops drag him by. Charlie asks if they’re going to kill him. Slack says they’ll get information out of him first – information about people like her.

Ladies of Easy Virtue? That seems like a strange thing to grill a man about. I guess everyone’s feeling a little lonely, at this point.

Out in the middle of nowhere, the zombie gang led by Buzz encounters a poorly constructed wall. Seriously. It appears to be made of plywood.

Buzz grabs a zombie carrying a cleaver and has him chop through the plywood. Which is one whole layer thick. The mind boggles.

Buzz peaks through the plywood, and sees a half-dozen zombies hanging in the air, strung up by their feet, with targets on their chests. This does not please Buzz.

Beyond the “targets,” Buzz can see Fiddler’s Green. That’s probably a bad thing, for the folks who are less than dead.

Back in the Green, Cholo finally delivers the box of booze to Kaufman, who mentions the neighbor that Cholo clubbed in the head. In an appreciative way.

Cholo opens up a bottle of booze and offers some to Kaufman, who notes that this is very extravagant.

Cholo says that it’s all right – with the $20,000 Kaufman owes him, plus some other money Cholo saved, Cholo now has the money to get his own place in The Green.

Kaufman says that there’s a “very long waiting list,” to get in, and Cholo replies, essentially, that if Kaufman doesn’t think Cholo is good enough to live there, Cholo will start telling people about what goes out with Kaufman’s garbage.

Something tells me that Cholo is unfamiliar with people in power. My suspicion is that if Kaufman took Cholo to the center of the mall, and then killed an ate him, as long as Kaufman had Cholo roasted first and/or used barbecue sauce in the eating process, no one would really care.

Kaufman suggests he and Cholo can talk about this when Cholo is “a little less excited.” And then in comes a guard.

Kaufman tells the guard, “I won’t be needing this man any more.”

Cholo starts walking down the stairs with the guard, then beats the guard down. And takes his gun.

Cholo heads out into the slums, and collects Foxy.

Out at one of the guard posts, two dudes who’ll surely be dead soon are having some target practice with a giant balloon-zombie. There’s no real sense of scale, so the thing appears to be Macy’s Parade-sized. I think a smaller target would be a better practice option.

Did I mention I suspect these guys’ll be dead soon?

Cholo and Foxy go up to another army dude and tell him they’re taking the truck out. Army dude asks for their orders, and Cholo hands him some.

Army dude tells Cholo that the orders are from the night before. Cholo reaches for his stolen gun, but pauses when he hears shots. The army man assures him it’s just target practice.

The two dudes having target practice get into an argument about one of them making too much noise. The noisemaker claims it’s not him, and turns on the search light. They see Buzz. They scream.

Cholo inquires if this is screaming practice. Sirens go off. The army faces down the cadre of zombies being led by Buzz, and shoots a whole lot of them.

Cholo, Foxy, and the rest of the Dead Reckoning crew get into the Dead Reckoning. Pretty Boy asks if they should do something about the zombies storming the single gate that’s holding the zombies back.

Cholo says that’s their way out.

The zombies knock over the chain link fence which, I think I should repeat, really was the only thing keeping the zombies away. So let’s recap. Keeping the zombies out:

One sheet of plywood.

A single chain-link fence.

I’m looking forward to the “line of banana peels” defensive strategy that I’m sure is coming up soon.

The zombies move in and starting eating army men, and the Dead Reckoning takes off. As this happens, Buzz accidentally pulls the trigger on the gun he’s been carrying around. It goes off. So Buzz points it at the Dead Reckoning and fires off a bunch of useless rounds.

No, wait, I take it back, he manages to hit a drum of something flammable, which blows up.

And so, the zombies walk on towards Fiddler’s Green.

In Dead Reckoning, Cholo calls Kaufman and says he wants his money, with interest. Five million dollars, or he blows Kaufman’s castle out of the sky, using Dead Reckoning.

Possible? Plausible? I have no idea. I didn’t realize that Dead Reckoning was that heavily armed. Maybe they’ll use the fireworks to torch the place?

Eh.

Either way, Cholo hangs up, and Kaufman tells the dude who’s in the room with him (don’t ask me who he is, what he does, or what his name is, ‘cause I don’t know) what’s going on.

Random Dude says that Kaufman should pay Cholo, but Kaufman notes that they don’t negotiate with terrorists, and says they have other options.

I feel I need to reiterate this fact: In a world where money has lost ALL meaning, why NOT give Cholo 5 million bucks? Where’s the guy going to spend it? And on what? All of that paper money is just that – paper.

But I guess that wouldn’t make for much of a plot.

So Kaufman drags Riley out of prison, which makes Charlie sad. It seems to make Slack sad as well, which is interesting, since she just met the guy a couple of hours ago.

Kaufman tells Riley that he wants Riley to get Dead Reckoning back from Cholo. Apparently, Dead Reckoning is worth 2 million dollars. Oh, and it was designed by Riley.

In exchange, Riley wants a car, and enough weapons and ammunition to head North. And he wants to bring his friends. I find it odd that he used the plural, since as near as I can tell Charlie is his only friend. He can’t be talking about Slack, right? They JUST met.

We get a short scene where Cholo drops off a dude named Mouse at the pier where someone is supposed to drop his money. It’s meant to build tension, but nothing actually happens, so I’ll just mention it’s there and leave it at that.

Back in a locker room at The Green, Riley, Charlie, and Slack are suiting up and getting ready to go out and find Dead Reckoning. Okay, it appears no one is listening to me: They JUST MET Slack. Why is she even on this adventure? Anyone?

Seriously, now. If she shoots Riley in the head and takes off on her own, will anyone be surprised? At all?

Argh.

On with the show.

Slack wants to know why Riley is helping Kaufman. Riley points out that if Cholo shells The Green, it’s going to hurt the people in “the city.” By which I’m guessing he means the slums.

In addition to our lovable losers, Riley is given three more people for his team. They all get cute little names and such, but I’m just going to call them Skinny Solider, Chick Solider, and Fat Soldier. Because they’re really just along to keep the body count high.

Riley and crew head outside, to the place where all the vehicles are kept. Of course, this is where all the dead people just were. Along with, like, the flames and stuff.

Uh… say… question… Why aren’t there more soldiers there now, cleaning up the dead bodies? And/or wiping out the undead ones? Did they somehow just miss all the explosions and such? And the fact that their gate has been knocked over?

Riley tells Charlie to go fire up The Woody, which I hope is some sort of vehicle. He then radios back to Kaufman that the zombies got through his tiny little weak fence, and that they’re headed for The Green.

Kaufman says that the creatures will never get past the water in the way, which is pretty stupid, as it’s not like zombies even need to swim. They don’t breathe. So they can just, like, walk across. I’m not really sure what kept them back this long.

Kaufman adds, “Zombies, man. They creep me out.” Which I think might be the very first time someone has used the word zombie in one of these movies. Though I could be wrong.

Probably not, though.

I confess I love the next scene, but it’s totally pointless. They find “Woody,” which is a big old car that has guns welded to it. They keys are melted (they fat guy points at the fires, so I guess they used to keep the keys on top of easy-to-explode fuel drums) so Chick Solider hotwires the car.

Charlie looks down his rifle, carefully aiming for a zombie that’s somewhere. Eventually, he’s pointing his rifle right at Slack’s head. Charlie fires, Slack jumps, and then turns around and sees that there was a zombie RIGHT behind her, which Charlie shot.

Instead of, say, telling her to duck first. Or maybe telling her to run away so he could shoot it. That was pretty reckless, all things being equal.

Riley and Skinny Solider go into the ammo room, and get ammo. And shoot a bunch of zombies in the head.

Back at the car, Slack sees a zombie behind Charlie, and she shoots the zombie. She also nicks Charlie’s ear with the bullet. On the side of his face that looks normal. Poor dude just can’t catch a break.

Riley and Skinny Solider run up to the vehicle, and they all pile in.

Then an nearly-headless zombie trundles up, his head hanging by a bit of skin at the back of his neck. Headless swings forward, and bites Skinny Solider. Then he falls back, and Charlie shoots the zombie through the chest, and the bullet goes all the way through the zombie and through the zombie’s head.

Riley asks if Skinny Solider is bit. Fat solider says yes. Riley says, “Go!” Meaning the car. Not skinny soldier. Who actually should leave, before he becomes undead and tries to kill them all.

The crew drives out. Slack asks Riley how long Skinny Solider has to live. Riley said he had a brother who got bitten, and that the brother turned in less than an hour. Slack shoots skinny solider in the head.

Back in The Green, Kaufman assures his various “board members” that even if things go south, he has set up places for them to go to, where their families will be safe.

Over in Dead Reckoning, Cholo talks about how he’s never going to be anyone, because he never did anything. Then he shoots a zombie in the head.

Next, with Riley and crew, Riley tells Slack where to drive, because she’s driving now and he has a homing device.

Slack tells Riley she’s never been out of the city.

Riley tells Slack to pull over. He tells Charlie to cover the soldiers, and informs them that Kaufman is never going to see Dead Reckoning again. And if they have a problem with that, they can get out. Only, of course, they can see the various and sundry zombies walking around, so they know that’s not really much of a choice.

The crew drives on.

Cholo radios Mouse to ask if the money has arrived yet, and Mouse says no. Then Mouse gets attacked by zombies. And eaten by a zombie clown. And then some other zombies.

Mouse dies. There are intestines involved.

Elsewhere, Buzz and his zombie army encounter the water barrier that prevents them from getting to The Green. Buzz steps off the ground and into the water.

A couple of short scenes later, Buzz and his cohorts step out of the water. Yep. Bunch of zombies stepping out of the water and walking towards the city. If you’re a fan of this kind of thing, this is the moment where you simultaneously wet your pants a little bit, and start composing your fan letter to George Romero.

Oh, and there are some scenes where Cholo loads up the rockets on Dead Reckoning so he can blow things up. And Riley sees where Cholo is headed, and tells Slack where to go to stop Cholo.

Kaufman starts packing up his money, in preparation for leaving The Green. Seriously, y’all, the man is packing a bunch of green-tinted toilet paper.

I guess we’re getting into where everything is supposed to fall apart, so let’s just rock off some twists.

Long story short, the Fat Solider realizes he’s better off throwing in with Riley, so he punches Chick Solider in the face, and knocks her out. And leaves her in the back of the stolen vehicle, which has no roof. And she’s unconscious. I can’t say I feel really good about this particular story piece.

And Riley and Charlie go to “talk to” Cholo about his poor life choices.

And Slack and Fat Solider chase after them, after punching Chick Solider out and leaving her lying around like a tasty, tasty steak.

Cholo opens up Dead Reckoning, and lets Riley and Charlie in. Then he sticks a gun in Riley’s face, and tells Pretty Boy to get ready to shoot the rockets at The Green.

Meanwhile, at the city, everyone outside is getting eaten. So, you know… maybe being blown up wouldn’t be so bad at this point.

In the midst of all this, Buzz teaches another zombie to shoot an automatic gun, so they can more efficiently kill their prey.

Back at The Woody, Chick Solider wakes up. And grabs a gun. And wanders around for a little while, almost effects the main plotline but doesn’t really, then she gets eaten.

Cholo goes to blow up Fiddler’s Green, only Riley uses his homing device/remote control to keep Cholo from doing anything. And then he destroys the remote.

There’s some gunfire, and Charlie takes the guns out of the hands of the people holding guns on him.

Did I mention Cholo totally got shot in there, somewhere? He did. The chick solider did it, just before she got eaten. But like I said, it doesn’t really effect the plot, since Cholo is still super-alive.

Kaufman is confronted by one of his cohorts – whose money is in the bag? Kaufman pulls a “look over there!” trick, and shoots his friend in the head.

Riley calls Kaufman to tell Kaufman that they caught Cholo. Kaufman is saddened by this, as he wouldn’t have had to kill his cohort, if he had known this.

Suddenly, something in The City blows up real good. And now everyone is finally aware that The Dead have totally gotten into the city, and that they are totally eating people.

Riley tells his people to pick Cholo up and put him in Dead Reckoning. Cholo says he’d rather take The Woody. Foxy opts to go with Cholo.

Foxy is the stupidest person in this movie who doesn’t end up as lunchmeat.

Cholo says he’s going to head to an outpost in Cleveland. Riley says they haven’t heard anything from them in a while.

I just cannot get over how dumb Foxy is, following this guy.

Moving right along.

Riley tells the crew that they’re going to head back to the city, and see if they can help anyone.

Man, that’s like an hour’s drive. Everyone’s going to be a chew toy by the time they get there.

Kaufman states, “You have no right.” I guess he’s talking to the zombies. He is a silly man.

Riley and crew head back to the city, informing whoever is still running the place that they need to shut down the electric fence that surrounds the city so that people can escape. A few army folks say they can’t get ahold of the power people – everyone is gone. Or dead. Or whatever happened, they don’t know, they just know they’re leaving. So they do.

Riley babbles a bunch of, “We can’t help people in any of the following ways,” lines, but notes that he has a plan.

I should point out that in the middle of all the zombie mayhem, a biker from “Dawn of the Dead,” now available in zombie form, hacks up some people with a machete.

Back with Cholo and Foxy, Cholo spots a zombie, and shoots it in the head, and then gets bitten by another zombie. Foxy cocks his shotgun and gives Cholo a choice of whether or not he wants a shot in the head now, or not.

Cholo opts to NOT get shot in the head, stating, “I always wanted to see how the other half lives.”

In the city, it’s more zombie mayhem. And things blowing up. And zombies on fire. Buzz headshots the zombie on fire. Zombie mercy killing, apparently.

They all just keep on heading to Fiddler’s Green, the big old building at the heart of the city.

Foxy drops Cholo off in the city so that Cholo can do whatever, and then Foxy takes off. Adios, Foxy. I have no idea how you lived this long. I truly do not.

Buzz and his cohorts break into Fiddler’s Green and start eating people.

Riley and Dead Reckoning arrive at a bridge, and Riley goes to lower the bridge, which will hopefully allow people to escape.

Meanwhile, a bunch of residents of Fiddler’s Green have managed to run outside, only the electric fence is still active.

Riley goes into the bridge-lowering building, and goes to lower the bridge.

Inside Dead Reckoning, the various people inside realize that they’re surrounded by zombies.

They open the roof hatch, and Riley runs up the front of Dead Reckoning. Only he can’t get in, because Pretty Boy is driving Dead Reckoning around.

They cross the bridge. Riley is still up top.

Riley tells them to fire off some sky flowers. Sky flowers are fired.

Over by the electric fence, a bunch of people have a fence on one side, and a bunch of zombies on the other. And here come the flowers.

The zombies are distracted for about a second, and then they get their focus back, and people are gonna get eaten. In a big way.

Kaufman and his man-servant head out of Fiddler’s Green and go to Kaufman’s car, pausing to shoot at Buzz on the way. Kaufman hits Buzz twice, which makes Buzz mad. This is probably not a good thing.

Kaufman gets into his car, and his man-servant goes to open the garage door. Did I mention they’re in some sort of underground garage? They totally are.

A hand slams Kaufman’s window. It’s Buzz!

Kaufman’s driver makes a run for it – and he’s got the keys.

Buzz pounds on the window. Kaufman goes to shoot him, but he’s out of bullets.

Buzz grabs a nearby gas pump, and makes as if to pump Kaufman’s gas. Then he jams the gas nozzle through the car’s front window, and just kind of wanders off, with gas leaking into Kaufman’s car.

Kaufman gets out of the car, gets some ammo, and reloads. And here comes Cholo, who fires at Kaufman. Kaufman fires back, but Cholo keeps on coming. Because Cholo is all dead and such.

Kaufman locates an extra set of keys, then turns around, and realizes that Cholo is still moving, because Cholo is a zombie. A really rotted one, which is strange, since Cholo has been dead for like 20 minutes.

Eh. Whatever. We’re talking about a movie that involves the walking dead. Time to suspend some disbelief, methinks.

Anyway, Cholo grabs Kaufman, and Buzz rolls a firebomb kind of thing into the garage, which hits all the gasoline on the floor and causes the car to blow up. Thus allowing Kaufman to be killed by a Latino and a black fellow, both of whom were poor. Romero might have gone just a touch over the top with the irony.

Outside, Dead Reckoning finally gets to the electric fence, and Charlie prepares to fire. But they’re WAY too late. As I predicted. Because seriously, that was a long, long, long drive they had to make.

Riley tells Charlie to shoot. Charlie shoots three rockets, which… kills a bunch of zombies, I guess. Seems like a waste of ammo, really.

Pretty Boy says they’re too late.

Slack says, no, wait. And then all the poor people come wandering out. Guess they’re better at hiding from zombies, or something. And explosives.

Riley steps outside and says howdy to Mulligan. He and his people are staying, and planning on attempting to rebuild the city. Somehow. Seriously, does no one realize that Fiddler’s Green is like ten blocks away, and TEEMING with the living dead? Run, Mulligan! Take a You!

Or is that the joke? Mulligan gets a second chance at creating a safe city?

All right then. I’m just going to let that go.

Riley notes, once again, that he’s headed out of here. In a gigantic gas-guzzling vehicle, which I hope runs on solar power, because I can see no way he’s going to find gas, or diesel, or corn oil, or whatever that thing runs on.

Inside the Dead Reckoning, Anchor, a guy who didn’t have a name until now, gets attacked by a zombie. Which someone shoots and tosses out of the vehicle.

Riley looks outside, and sees a bunch of zombies, including Buzz, walking across a bridge. Pretty Boy goes to fire at them.

Riley says, “No. They’re just looking for a place to go.” Then he tells his crew to fire off the last of the sky flowers. And to head North.

That way, we can get a shot of the Dead Reckoning heading off on the highway, while fireworks fill the air. Happy Ending!

And really, that’s the end.

I feel the need to bring this up because, if you know anything about these movies at all, you’re probably well aware that there’s another movie in the series: “Diary of the Dead.”

But here’s the dilemma – “Diary” doesn’t follow this movie.

There are a lot of words used when it comes to “Diary.” Reboot. Starting over. Sequel. But really, it’s more of a side-quel – “Diary” takes place at the beginning of the zombie uprising.

Only, of course, the zombie uprising happened in 1968.

Now, honestly, even that’s in question when you take the first four “Dead” movies into consideration. If you tried to timeline them out, “Night,” follows the first night of the zombie uprising. Which is followed by “Dawn,” which partially takes place at the same time as “Night,” even though it was shot roughly ten years later.

And then ten years after that came “Day,” which may or may not take place at the “same” time as “Dawn.” Seeing as how there’s a pregnant woman in “Dawn” who never gives birth, we have to assume the heroes of that movie are only in the mall for a few months. Six. Maybe seven at most.

And the people in “Day” haven’t been in their hidey-hole all that long. Months? A year? There’s no way to tell.

“Land” is, in fact, the only one of the three that must take place after the other movies, though trying to figure out an exact timeline is probably completely impossible.

So… what to do with “Diary?”

I’m going to include it.

But I wanted to note, here and now, that “Land” really completes the story of the dead. In the first movie, they’re mindless beings. In the second, we learn that they’ve retained some memories. And that to some degree they can learn.

In the third movie, we discover just how much they might be able to learn – and in part four, the zombies are on their way to building a new society. One that’s going to run out of food pretty quick, seeing as how there aren’t a ton of people left.