Survival of the Dead
Dir: George Romero
Reviewer: Dustin Hall

It was pretty well cursed from the beginning.

At the screening, Saturday night’s finale was a showing of Survival of the Dead, hosted by Director George A. Romero. The crowd was energized, the director was standing proudly, the ovation was standing… and the projector blew up.

Yes, the only projector that could play the film print blew a bulb, and the show did go on, but not ’til the next day. Less energy, fewer people, no director. Still, no reason to give this new ‘of the Dead’ film its own shot at greatness, glitz and glam be damned.

And… it’s better than Diary of the Dead, but really, that’s not saying a lot. And even then, just barely.

Survival follows the story of an island. Many characters come and go across this island, but it’s the land and the families on it that really are the focus here. The story takes place in the initial weeks of the Zombie Apocalypse, so there are still plenty of confused victims here. This particular island is a self-contained land, worked and loved by two families, long rivals. These two, extremely Irish, families have different opinions on how to deal with the zombies. One side believes they need to be ruthlessly gunned down before they can bite and infect others, the other wants to preserve the zombies in case a cure is eventually found, redeeming the families. The side who wants to save the zombies has more guns and eventually forces the trigger-happy Irish clan off to the mainland of… America?

Yes, some hours by rowboat from this distinctly Irish setting is the distinctly American waterfront, where we meet a tech-savvy youth who’s joined forces with a paramilitary group ready to fight their way past the zombie swarms to some vestige of normalcy. In the midst of the battle, they meet a ragtag group of Irish bandits looking for an armed escort back home. With the promise of a safe island haven in their minds, the armed armada heads home to find the ‘normal’ people being gunned down execution style, a means of preserving the dead, and more importantly the order under the island’s head honcho. And so, its time for war… but there’s a barnload of zombies out there to deal with and, I shit you not, one riding a horse.

Two distinct problems haunt this movie. First, the zombies aren’t scary. There are a few jump scares here and there, but there’s a complete lack of tension, and at no point do we feel for any of the characters or really care if they’re torn apart by zombies; in fact, we kind of look forward to it. As such, no horror at all. Also, there’s a lot of comedy in this movie, usually at the expense of a zombie. Some are fished out of the water, some are trained mailmen, but whatever their use, you just can’t really take the zombies seriously anymore. And if there’s no horror in the movie, what good are the zombies for?

Well, one might say they’re good for social commentary. Romero’s strength, at least in the early films, was making thought-provoking parables between mankind and the hordes of walking corpses. That subtle voice that made us think while letting the movie be a movie has, however, changed in tone over time. Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead both suffered from an intrusive editorial voice that shouted over the sounds of the muted story of both films; and beyond that, the messages were muddled in both cases, typically because it just didn’t really mesh with a zombie story.

Survival of the Dead finds the same problems. A simple zombie story becomes too concerned with drawing lines to a social agenda, and while it’s true that the best movies always have something to say, when it defeats the narrative of that film, you just get a jumbled mess in the end. Sifting through this mess, it seems we’re supposed to take home the idea that we shouldn’t give up on people, that we can redeem anyone, and that some grudges, some hates, go beyond death. But, it’s a friggin’ zombie movie. I’m sorry George, there’s no way you can sell to me the notion that zombies can be trained or redeemed. I’ve seen how your world ends in Land of the Dead: they eat all of us. Knowing what the future holds already, there is no way the audience can question the ‘Pro-zombie destruction’ party. Ever.

I wanted to like this film, I really did. I met Romero out in the lobby before the film, and he’s a great guy who really enjoys his craft. And truly, you have to respect the man for finding his own funding, making his own films, and continuing to stretch his legs, after all these years, on his own terms. Respect, yes, but I don’t have to like everything he creates.

I hate to say it, but I now dislike ½ of the ‘of the Dead’ series. What was once the crown jewel of horror franchises has fallen to mediocrity, much the same way that the Prequel Trilogy has sullied the legacy of Star Wars. The magic is gone.

I’ll always be a fan of the originals, but this is one series that needs stay dead. Someone, please, remove the head or destroy the brain.