Survival of the Dead

[LooneyJetman]

George A Romero's sixth zombie file, Survival of the Dead, has crept out on DVD and Blu Ray. I watched it last night and wasn't impressed. The DVD has no special features at all. The picture quality is pretty good, but the movie is just dull.

I was one of the few who liked Diary of the Dead, but this film felt very poor in comparison.

[sideshowbob]

I liked diary ... I'm a sucker for "... of the dead" movies. I've not seen this one though.

[johnson293]

I don't know what it is about the most recent spate of Zombie movies, but they just don't have same effect on me that the early ones did.

Even now, I find the likes of Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), and Zombie Flesh Eaters as very creepy, and still quite scary (even at 36 y.o.)!

However, Land OTD, Diary OTD, the Resident Evil films, and the Dawn remake just didn't scare me as much.

Having seen some of this new one, it also seems quite 'meh'.

There is obvious use of CGI (again) for a few of the effects, but I think thats just the way everything is going - CGI can allow to show things that wouldn't be possible/as easy using traditional effects.

Also, couple of things that were plain

Spoiler:

Zombie riding a horse at the end..... and the Flare Zombie, when it just stands there as its head combusts and the soldier lights his cigarette on it, before karate kicking it overboard!

[LouBarlow]

Horrible film.

[Maximus]

i'm a massive fan of night,dawn and day .... maybe even obsessed
Survival falls firmly in the same category as Land and Diary in that I pretend it's not the same film maker.
Land is still the worst of the bunch for me, mainly because of the wait. Survival I put on the same par as Diary, it has it's moments but it's just overall pretty weak.

It has some of the worst cgi I have seen in a film, which for me is one of the biggest curiosities of Romero's 'new' movies, I can't believe he thinks it looks good or adds anything to the film and it would be a lot cheaper to just use a practical effect.

The storyline is once again pretty uninspired. I always liken the original trilogy to theatre-like, in that they become contained films with which comes a claustrophobic setting building through the film with a feeling of release at the finale. Survival once again has too many characters and a poor setting, which for me is weird as I would have expected him to return to his original Night roots now his budget is quite similar

Picture quality is good and crisp, though I can even moan about that as I want old, gritty film grain on a Romero zombie movie ,.... but that could just be me.

[LooneyJetman]

I don't watch zombie films for scares. When I was younger perhaps they would scare me. I'm just in it for the gut-munching now.

There was something really lacking in the style and editing of Survival. It felt like the camera was just pointed at the scene as it was filmed, there was little or no movement of the camera. By its very nature, Diary was better as it was mostly handheld and felt very natural. The editing of Survival made it worse by making the cuts just a little too long, so the action felt very stilted. I also thought the Irish accents were appallingly bad, even though I love the over the top character of McDermott in the original Day of the Dead.

+1 for the flare zombie though, that was good.

[agent999]

I thought the film was okay until they reached the island and then it started getting really stupid. This had even less to say than the last two Dead films, the whole point of the film had already been dealt with in one line of Day of the Dead, so that just left a dodgy western (with even dodgier Oirish accents) and some un-inspired gore. What has happened to George, in the old days he would never have introduced a lesbian character by having herself flick herself off in front of other men, surely he could have come up with a better idea than that? The whole thing just seemed tacky in the way that modern day Argento has become, a dirty old man getting off on stuff that you'd expect a Z grade film maker to put in.

[andylivsey]

Waste of time - even watched Diary last night to prep myself, it was just as bad, if not marginally worse...

[johnson293]

Any idea where this is supposed to sit in the whole Timeline of the series?

Night, Dawn, Day were followed by Land, but then Diary seemed to be a reboot showing the start of the/an outbreak from a first person perspective.

So does this follow Diary, or is it supposed to be parallel to Land?

I haven't watched it right through start to finish yet, so apologies if it's mentioned in the film.

[LouBarlow]

There are characters from Diary in Survival I think, if I recall correctly.

[LooneyJetman]

The soldiers that appear briefly in Diary are some of the main character in Survival. I don't think there's an official timeline for the original films.

Survival has a caption that appears stating that it is 6 days since the initial outbreak, and then another that says it is three months (or was it years?) later.

[LordoftheDance]

I absolutely love Land of the Dead and think it's up there with Dawn... and Day...

I thought Diary of the Dead was under-rated. It's certainly the weakest of the 'Dead' series of films, but does have some cracking gore scenes and some good scares.

Haven't seen Survival yet. I picked it up in Asda earlier and went all gooey at the knees, but my other half told me off and said I wasn't allowed to buy it as I already bought Toy Story last week on Blu.

[Jaime]

Thought it was just okay until they got to the island, where it quickly devolved into complete drivel. I enjoyed it more than Diary though, if only because some bits were so bad they were pretty funny (the final shot had me in stitches).

Spoiler:

The twin reveal has got to be one of the weakest plot twists in recent history and the way it was handled was abysmal. Also, Sarge has got to be one of Romero's least likable lead characters (alongside those kids in Diary) and such an indecisive leader. SARGE Hey, if we stayed we could really make something of this place. CUT TO - boat leaving SARGE (VO) And so we left this island... And don't get me started on his little tantrum in the truck.

Real shame to see one of cinema's greats end his career in this way.

[Space Coyote]

Watched this tonight and is definately the worst film I've seen in a while.
Atrocious acting, even worse accents, no cohesive story to speak of and really bad steroetypes.

In fact, during the shoot out at the ferry port I felt as If I was watching Police Academy 4 or something...and it went downhill from there.

Utter utter tripe.

[LordoftheDance]

I just watched this tonight too, and whilst I definitely think it's the weakest of the 6 Dead... films, I didn't think it was rubbish. Just quite average. And when Romero does an average zombie movie, that's a very bad thing indeed.

Too much CGI, uninspired kills, above average acting, throwaway and ridiculous moments (like the Chinaman fishing on the roof - wtf), silly twin reveal.

Night 9/10
Dawn 9/10
Day 10/10
Land 8.5/10
Diary 7/10
Survival 5/10

[KRW]

I've seen this a few times now, and its not awful, just disapointing. There's some nice ideas in there but totally wasted. I'm beginning to have my doubts about whether or not Romero actually directed this - is it the first time he's used the 2:35/1 aspect ratio for one of the dead films? I can't understand why as its not really necessary.

[anephric]

Presumably to try to make something cheap look classy? Land of the Dead was 2.35:1, btw.

[LordoftheDance]

Originally Posted by KRW

I've seen this a few times now, and its not awful, just disapointing. There's some nice ideas in there but totally wasted. I'm beginning to have my doubts about whether or not Romero actually directed this - is it the first time he's used the 2:35/1 aspect ratio for one of the dead films? I can't understand why as its not really necessary.

No, he used it for Land of the Dead too - this was the second. I agree with you, though - there weren't any fantastic compositions like you often get with 2:35 films.

It's Romero, though. For every annoying or crap bit, there's a great bit just around the corner.

Spoiler:

O'Flynn giving the dynamite to the zombie, the flare zombie, the foam extinguisher zombie (although the CGI could have been a bit better there), underwater zombie attack, etc, etc

[KRW]

Yeah, its been a long time since I saw LOTD, and I remember being very disapointed with it. I'll have to revisit it, now that my disapointment has been tempered somewhat by the two that came after it. I still maintain that Diary is tremendous fun.

as for the great bits -

Spoiler:

yeah, the dynamite bit was fantastic and got a great laugh when I saw it with a crowd. I also liked the idea of using zombies as sort of lawn ornaments.

[Robert S]

I still like to regard Day as the final entry of the series. Just to maintain order and that.

Land has its merits, but it flirts with parody once too often for my liking, and the narrative isn't particularly strong (Asia/Slack sums it up well: "All this just for a *********** truck?").

Diary is, I think, the more interesting 00s Dead film, though the no-budget, shot-over-an-afternoon production is harmful (docu-style or not). Also, the kids are pretty intolerable. As with Land, the moments of self-referential humour kick me straight out of the film, leaving me contemplating the superiority of A New Nightmare over Scream, which is probably not what Romero was aiming for. Still, it is enjoyable for the most part.

Survival is clearly the result of post-Diary fan-boy squabbling, as Romero basically plays it safe on auto-pilot/extravagant kill-mode, eschewing any substantial satirical elements which, no matter how bluntly expressed, added a thoughtfulness to even his lesser work (see: Bruiser... actually, don't).

I think Monkey Shines is his last great film (though I've still not seen The Dark Half).