George Romero’s Land of the Dead comes to DVD in the highly anticipated Unrated Director’s Cut as well as the theatrical R-rated version on October 18, 2005 from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. This transcript is from a tele-press conference that Horror.com took part in.

QUESTION:  This is the first movie of the Dead series that you’ve made in the era of DVD.  Did you do anything different with the DVD application in mind while you were making the movie?

MR. ROMERO:  You know, nothing specifically.  I felt that I got away with murder with the MPAA.  I used some tricks to get some stuff into the R rating.  I literally walked zombies in front of a green screen so that I could, you know, move—walk them, composite them onto the picture and basically take frames off of some of the gore.  So a lot of the stuff—really all we did was—I knew that DVD was coming, but I didn’t really change the film that much, the intention of the film.  The DVD is a little harder, but not that much.  And I think that really what the fans are going to like about it are the extras, the other stuff that’s in there, which, you know, there were contributions made.  John Leguizamo shot a little film, and the guys from [unintelligible] of the Dead shot a little film while we were shooting the movie.   And, you know, we cut some extras together, and I think that’s going to be the most fun.  But no, I—as a filmmaker, the intention of the film isn’t really any different.

QUESTION:  This is also the first of the Dead films where you’ve used actors who are somewhat more experienced that in the previous ones.

MR. ROMERO:  That’s a nice way of putting it. [laughs]

QUESTION:  Did that change anything in either your experience of it or in the ultimate impact or in how you even prepared to do it?

MR. ROMERO:  No.  I was a little more uptight going in because I didn’t know some of these people.  But I’ve—you know, the way it turned out, everybody was—Simon Baker had shot a TV series in Pittsburgh, so we had, you know, some commonality there.  Dennis Hopper and I, even though he’s sort of gone Republican…

Yes, Easy Rider has golf pants.  And I’m not blowing his cover.  He’s proudly—he wears them proudly.  But we had—you know, we made our first films as directors right around the same time, so we have that commonality.  I’d worked with Robert before.  I’ve known [unintelligible] since she was, you know, three feet tall.  And nobody had any attitude.  And this was like—let me tell you this was a grueling shoot.  I mean this was the toughest shoot I’ve ever been on.  It was all freezing cold and all that.  Everybody came to work, man.  I mean it was like—it was great.  There were—you know, there were no problems with anyone, so it just felt like old times.  I mean I didn’t sense any difference.

QUESTION:  What’s different in the director’s cut that’s not in the theatrical?

MR. ROMERO:  Well, there are a few effects that Nicotero did that we—I just didn’t even try to pass by the MPAA because I knew that they wouldn’t happen.  A guy’s face gets ripped off.  There’s a few things like that.  And basically there are some other effects that are in the film that are just a little longer.  I mean you see them a little more clearly.  The MPAA will never tell you to cut a scene.  They’ll just say well, you know, take ten frames off that.  They don’t want to appear to be censors.  So we extended those.  Most of the difference—I think it’s only about five minutes longer.  I don’t remember exactly.  But most of the—half of that is made up by a scene that we just—I didn’t think worked as well as it might have.  And it’s a scene where Leguizamo, when he first comes into Fiddler’s Green, goes into an apartment next door to Kaufman’s apartment, and there’s a guy that has hung himself.  And I just didn’t think the effects came off that well, and I didn’t—I just didn’t think it was as good as it might have been, so we cut it out of the theatrical release. 

And so that makes up most of the difference in the running time. And of course it’s a little harder.  I mean, you know, it’s a little—there’s a little more gore.  That’s not—I don’t know.  That’s not the important thing to me, because I think the film worked as it was.  I think that, you know, I literally was able to get away with murder, maybe because it was a major studio this time.  And I didn’t really have to change that much.  I was quite pleased with the way it all turned out the first time.  So I don’t think it’s, you know, hugely different.  I think the fans will get off on it, particularly on the extras even more so than the scenes—you know, then the gore stuff.

QUESTION:  I want to talk a little about the long wait to get the film to the screen.  And as it was coming out in the theater, I actually thought well, I’m glad it has to come out now because I can’t imagine this film having come out for any other time other than post-September 11th, post-Iraq.  It seemed such an integral part of what the film was about.

MR. ROMERO:  Well, that—you know, I actually wrote—I’m sorry.  My answers are always too long.  But I actually wrote a version of this—I had this [unintelligible].  I did the first one in the 60s and then 70s, 80s, and I wanted to do the 90s and missed it because my partner and I were—we got involved in all these development deals, Hollywood development deals.  No movies ever got made.  You know, I made a lot of bucks, but never made a movie.  And in frustration, I fled and made a little film called Bruiser that nobody’s ever seen, and missed the 90s.  And as soon as I finished that movie, I went home and started to write, draft [unintelligible].  It was called Dead Reckoning.  And I sent it around literally days before 9/11 happened.  And then of course everybody wanted to make, you know, soft ice cream movies, fuzzy, friendly movies.

And so I put it back in the drawer and came back to it after the invasion.  And I realized—I said wow, this is a lot stronger.  And it’s funny.  You don’t have to change that much, you know.  It’s like there’s—I had the armored vehicle.  I had Dead Reckoning.  And I had it driving through this little village.  But after you’d seen all that stuff on CNN, you know, it just resonated that much more to have, you know, an armored vehicle going through a small village, you know, then everybody wondering why they’re pissed off at us.  A lot of that just resonated.  I threw in some cheesy, you know, dialogue, like we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

You know, and it’s darker, I think.  We made the tower taller.  And it’s not really post-9/11.  It’s about 9/11, pre and post, you know, the idea of feeling protected by water until the water gets breached and, you know, anyway, all that.  And these are just snapshots.  I’m not meaning to be—I don’t know.  I’m not Michael Moore.  I’m not trying to raise hell.  I’m just sort of—like the idea of these things being snapshots of when they were made.

QUESTION:   I remember when the movie was first announced, and it was first announced that you were doing it with a major studio, the big question certainly among the fans was how is George Romero going to, you know, get away with being George Romero in terms of the gore and the zombie carnage and all that?

MR. ROMERO:  Well, how did I do?  You tell me.

QUESTION:   Well, I think you did really—I mean that’s part of my—that’s actually the question I’m leading up to.  I think at that time, people were already saying well, you know, we’ll get the R-rated version, but wait for the unrated version to come out on DVD.

MR. ROMERO:  Yeah.

QUESTION:  Looking back at that, were you surprised at how much you actually did get away with on screen, and did that kind of leave you sort of rethinking a “unrated” cut?

MR. ROMERO:  Well, I didn’t have to rethink it.  I mean I—not in that sense.  I was amazed at what we got away with, actually.  I mean, you know, we would send the stuff in, and I’d keep—I’d figure man, it’s going to come back with, you know, black pencil marks all over it.  We got away with a lot.  I think that maybe because it was a major, maybe you don’t get hit as hard, but I don’t know.  I mean the movie is my movie.  I mean I was actually quite amazed that I was able to make the movie, you know, that I wanted to make.  And you know, I used some tricks, walking bodies in front of a green screen so I could lay them over some of the gore, you know, because the MPAA will never say cut this.  They’ll say cut so many frames out.

They don’t want to appear to be censors.  But I was actually quite amazed that the film made it, you know, not only with the gore, but even politically.  You know, I thought I might even get some heat about that.  Of course, Valente is not there anymore, so maybe that’s why.  But the movie, I thought, was—I mean it was—it’s basically my film.  I mean I didn’t have to back off much of anything for the theatrical version.  So as a result, the DVD is not—you know, it’s stronger here and there, and it has, you know, a couple of effects that we didn’t even try with the MPAA because we knew that it would never get through.  But mostly half of the added length is a scene that we cut because we didn’t think it worked that well, you know.  And then there’s just little add-ons, little trims, you know, scenes that are a bit longer because we had to cut them for the MPAA.  And then there are a couple of things that are new, but not that many.  And I don’t think the intention of the film has changed at all.  I think it’s the same movie, basically.  It’s just a little broader.  It’s a little gorier and—you know, I was not at all hung up by, you know, what I had to do to this movie.  So sometimes when they promote, you know, the director’s cut, it’s supposed to be this angry thing, you know, that the rest are coming back and saying take this, you assholes. But this was not that at all.  I think it’s just a slightly expanded version.

QUESTION:   Do you speak Spanish?

MR. ROMERO:  No, I’m sorry, man.  My dad was Spanish.  My mom was Lithuanian.  So I don’t speak Spanish.  I’m sorry.  I just speak English.

QUESTION: That’s all right.  You must be proud because you are a Romero anyway, right?

MR. ROMERO:  Anyway, yeah.  I’ve got that.  I’ve got that much.

QUESTION:  Anyway.  Well, [unintelligible] actually the essence of the film, you know, what the soul of the film, and also the relationship and the political impact and the relationship with 9/11.  [Unintelligible], please?

MR. ROMERO:  Well, you know, I think of these films as snapshots of the decade when that—when they were made.  I’m not trying to be Michael Moore or be, you know, hypercritical in any way.  I think this film—anybody that looks at it that way will understand that I’m not a big fan of the Bush administration, but I’m not—I’m more interested in just sort of reflecting the times when the films were made.  And that’s my—you know, that’s my platform.  I sort of keep coming back to that.  You know, I’ve made four of them now, and each one is different stylistically and it’s different—you know, the attitude, sociopolitical reflections in them are different.  But again, I’m not trying to preach or anything.  I think I was just trying to make this film, you know, dark and show some of the paranoia that’s going on today and the mistrust and all of those things.  I actually wrote a draft of it before 9/11 and sent it around, you know, right—and then 9/11 happened and nobody wanted to make hard-ass movies, so I had to put it away for a while and came back to it after the Iraqi invasion.  And some of the stuff I didn’t even have to change.  I mean there were themes in there that just resonated more because—you know, because of all the stuff we’d seen on CNN.  So basically what I try to do is just do a snapshot of the times and stylistically make the film look like a contemporary film.  That’s an exercise for me in a way.  It’s—more than anything it’s an exercise that—you know, and I’m proud of the work and I enjoy doing it.

QUESTION: So actually it’s more like a wake-up call or something like that to our society, modern times?

MR. ROMERO:  Well, I hope it—I don’t even know if it’s a wake-up call.  It’s just hey, guys, let’s look at ourselves here.  This is what we’re doing.  You know, it’s more—it really is just like taking a picture of what’s going on. 

QUESTION: And what’s the impact that you expect, you know, or the impact that you feel it’s going to take on—you know, on the fanatics and the general public?

MR. ROMERO:  I don’t know.  I don’t know if it’ll have any of that kind of impact.  I don’t think anybody would notice it.  I think I could show this movie at the White House and George Bush would say that’s a piece of shit and never notice that it was, you know, maybe a little bit about him.  It’s basically a thrill ride.  I just don’t want to—I just can’t—I don’t want to do things that are just shallow that way, you know.  Like I don’t—if I’m in the shower and trying to dream up an idea for a new movie, I don’t think of, you know, guys in hockey masks with knives.  I always try to think of well, what can I say here or what can I—how can I reflect something about the times?  But you know, I’m not—I don’t think I’m out there raving, you know, or marching or anything like that.  I think really I’m just sort of saying hey, guys, take a look at this.  I think this is where we’re at today.  And that’s what these are about.

QUESTION:  So actually, that will actually have some—it would fuel some kind of reflection, overall speaking, about modern times and our mistakes and.

MR. ROMERO:  Yeah.  I mean...  I don’t know.  But they always—they’re changed.  They’re different in each of the four films.  I mean they’re—you know, it’s just hey, you know, this is where we’re at now.  The first one was—you know, it was in the riots and the ghettos and the beginning of the war and, you know, it was anger.  And the second one was all of a sudden, you know, we had a lot of money and we were celebrating consumerism.  And so I was trying to satirize that a little bit.  The third one in the 80s, we were, you know, not only starting to mistrust institutions, but mistrusting each other.  And this one is, you know, man, worried about war coming to the homeland, basically.  And so they are just basically that.  They’re snapshots and reflections of the time and stylistic reflections as well.  The films, I think, look like the decades that they were made in, or at least I was trying to make them look that way.

QUESTION:  My question has to do with the makeup effects. This is the first film where you actually talked about using green screens. In the past you’ve worked with Tom and you’ve used appliances and whatnot.  Did you find that to be any type of a challenge in your filmmaking style, or did you embrace it and realize that it could give you some greater opportunity in your storytelling?

MR. ROMERO:  Well, you know what?  First of all, I’m a [unintelligible] fan, and I wanted to do everything, and so did Nicotero, wanted to do everything practically.  And there was really only one effect that we couldn’t pull off, the headless priest where the guy’s head is hanging off a little, you know, cord on his neck.  And we couldn’t pull it off.  We had to do that CG, which caught us by surprise at the very end of production.  We even tried to reshoot it, and we just couldn’t make it look realistic.  The puppet just didn’t look real enough, so we would up using CG.  The rest of the stuff—I mean we only used CG to—if we needed more zombies than we could afford to hire, so we used—you know, we had to tile in zombies when they were coming out of the river and coming up the street.  And then we had to put the building in, which—the building was a fiction.

And you know, it was the obvious stuff.  But none of the effects were CG.  Now when people say wow, Greg, you know, did this fabulous job.  Isn’t that terrific how far these prosthetics have come?  You know, by me, the yeoman’s job, and no one talks about this, but the real standout thing that Greg and his guys did was the makeup.  This is the first time that—I had a dozen zombie characters that were actors, that were real players, that had to be there, you know, three-quarters of the days that we were shooting.  And those cats had to put those people in the chair and make them up and make them look consistent and all of that.  And as far as I’m concerned, that’s—the greatest thing about the advances in the prosthetics is that, you know, the thinness of the makeup.  I mean you can make Big Daddy look dead, but he still has total facial expression.  And they have to do that every day.  And to me that was the toughest job that those guys had, and it was the best thing that they did in this film. 

I mean otherwise—you know, the gore effect.  I mean there’s only—what can you do, rip a guy’s arm off?  I mean you know, it’s not going to look that different now than it did in Dawn, you know.  Maybe a bit more realistic, but not so you’d notice.  I think that really the greatest thing that they did was make up those characters and make them believable and make them sympathetic and make them consistent.

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