Review for Survival of the Dead

Any film that uses the esteemed '…of the Dead' to identify itself must adhere to a certain set of rules laid down by the Godfather of Gore. They include gore-splattered visuals, a sharp subtext, downbeat humour and an eye for the zombie mythology that fans hold dear to their rotting hearts. What does Survival have that makes it any different from the horde of other zombie movies? For one, the Godfather of Gore directed it…

The king of the zombies uses cinema as his clandestine soapbox to satirize American values. In Night, he condemns communication, in Dawn, he cartoons consumerism, in Day, he mocks the military, in Land, he chastises class, and in Diary, he mocks the media. In his sixth instalment, Romero goes back to his roots with a story about feuding families. Does Romero's heart and soul still grove to the zombie beat or is he just spilling his guts to pass the time?


The dead have been walking for six days; Irish patriarch Patrick O'Flynn believes the people of Plum Island will have a better chance of survival if the dead stayed dead. Not everybody agrees. O'Flynn's religious rival Seamus Muldoon thinks we should keep the dead alive and forces O'Flynn to leave the island.


Three weeks later, a group of national guardsmen led by Nicotine Crocket rescue a teenager from bloodthirsty rednecks. He shows them an internet video of O'Flynn inviting survivors to Plum. The guardsmen drive to the harbour. Dead heads are plentiful. The group pinch a boat, rescue O'Flynn and set sail.


When they arrive, the group realise Muldoon is killing the living and chaining up the dead. O'Flynn wants to shoot that 'son-of-a-bitch' and brings together the remaining guardsmen and the O'Flynn family. They show up at the Muldoon ranch. The two families collide. A decisive shootout between O'Flynn and Muldoon arises. Will the living survive the dead?


The trouble with Survival of the Dead is its absence of 'oomph'. The direction lacks gusto. The politics are flaccid.  The 'inventive' zombie kills are just a senseless gimmick. The humour is stale and the CGI bullet hits just don't have the splatter-factor of Tom Savini pulling a button with a fishing line from someone's forehead. This is why Survival is a lazy addition to the series. It has no hunger nor boogie-woogie. When a director declares, 'these guys [the producers] want to make them [zombie movies] so I have to do them. They have the right - if I don't do them - to do it themselves, so I'd rather do them', you have to ask yourself, is this a valid enough reason to make a movie? It's a sign of compliance and Romero was never like that. As the DVD tagline says, 'death isn't what it used to be'.


One thing is certain; Romero still has the aptitude to mould and maintain oppositional conflict. Just look at the power struggle between Ben and Harry (Night of the Living Dead), Joan and Jack (Season of the Witch), Martin and Cuda (Martin), Stephen and Peter (Dawn of the Dead), Logan and Rhodes (Day of the Dead), Thad and George (The Dark Half) and Cholo and Kaufman (Land of the Dead). Survival is no exception. O'Flynn (who wants to kill the dead) and Muldoon (who wants to keep the dead alive) have been 'chewing on each other ever since the schoolyard'. As Romero says, 'the feud is more important to them than trying to address the crisis'. It's like the tribalism between Protestants and Catholics. This is quintessential Romero territory and it works.


Special Features: None - maybe when the Region 1 DVD comes out later in the year we can listen to Romero talk about this movie.

 Verdict: A new George A. Romero movie called Survival of the Dead, what more can be said? At least it's better than Diary of the Dead. Give it a decade, Day of the Dead got a bad response when it came out!