Survival of the Dead - L'isola dei sopravvissuti

Man, where do I begin? Survival of the Dead. it could have easily been one of Romero's best, since his beloved Dawn of the Dead, but what went wrong? what did he miss? what moment did he not seize? After getting my UK Blu-Ray I was sort of reserved in what i was going to think about this flick. I mean I thought the trailers looked corny, the feel amateur, even for Romero's standards, but I was willing to give it a go none the less.

Survival should have been the next DAWN of the DEAD. It had the set up, it had the locations, but it missed the story and the vibe. The film is skewered by a weak cast and an even weaker storyline.

Survivals western vibe and feel just seems so out of place and wasted. What should have occurred was trying to rebuild life on Plum island, what should have happened was an exploration of the rebuilding of humanity, something Romero has yet to touch upon in any of his Dead films... which is a goddamn shame.

I will say Survival is slightly OK. I still think Diary is the best of his newer zed flicks, and Survival is way better than Land but it is still a weak film, in fact Romero's 3 newest entries are all weak and devoid of the magic originally on display in Night Dawn and Day. When Romero gets back to that magic he will regain what is lost in the zombie genre, but with him sticking to the cheap thrills and half-assed writing I think his fall from zombie grace will be harder than even he will ever imagine.

These newer entries only seem to alienate his fan-based and this smart zombies back story he is trying to shove down our throats isn't working with the fans. Romero needs to get back to plain and simple story telling. Story telling that will show us why we followed him all these years, but this rushed production, dialog and all around feel is what is giving his series a bad name.

Survival will deliver on the gore, even on its corny moments, and it tries really hard to engage the audience with its characters but it falls apart because the cast and screenplay aren't strong enough.

in the end... another disappointing zed flick from the grandfather of the modern zombie.

George, if you read this... go back to Dawn, and look at it again and give us a film like that... that is what we want, and we know you have it in you, but if you set out to make another disaster like this it may be time to fold up the directors chair.

5 out of 10

I've always complained about so called "Zombie movies" that are actually just movies from any other genre with zombies. That's what this movie is: A shooter with zombies. Romero defined the Zombie genre, and he's now out of it. This was officially not a zombie movie.

There's been many attempts before. When-bugs-attack + zombies, teen flick + zombies, prom-night + zombies, etc,etc. Out of all those weird cross-gender movies, this is one of the best I've ever seen. It'll still get many negative reviews for a simple reason: People is judging it as a Romero movie, and at that, it sucks. And it's fair that people do that. They go to the movies expecting a Romero movie, and they get this. I would've been disappointed too if I'd expected that. I watched this sort of expecting a crappy movie, and I got a better-than-expected non-zombie flick. Not a bad deal.

The plot is certainly shallow, but the characters are still interesting, even if a little bit more empty than the usual lead roles from good old George A.

The deal is, there's nothing more to look for in Romero's movies. The social commentary is still there, except this time it doesn't really make sense. At a point, it looked like it was heading towards an anti- religious view of things (euthanasia), which looked interesting, but it dissipated into an old cheap western ending.

My theory:

George died at the end of the shooting of Land of the Dead, and both Diary and Survival where delivered but the Zombie of George Romero. Not bad (for a zombie).

I did not dislike this film for the most part like so many others seem to have. I liked parts of it, I thought it would have been better had it simply followed the national guardsmen of the "Diary of the Dead" film rather than having the feuding island clans plot, but it at least was not boring. I would give this one a seven, but the use of computer generated kills and blood made me lower the score a point. I never thought George Romero would resort to using computers to do his gory kills. Still, there is enough none computer kills that I will only lower the film a point rather than two. The film follows those wacky guardsmen from the Diary movie which I liked as it seems more like a sequel film than any of the previous Romero movies. Though this one can survive independently of the previous movie as well, the only thing one might be curious about had they not seen that movie is the scene where the one guardsmen goes over there scene in that film. Well they end up going to an island where one group believes they should try to kill all the zombies on the island while the other thinks they should try to coexist with them. The zombies look good at times and there are a lot of them. So as far as zombie action goes this one does all right. I just wish the film could have done more with the national guardsmen just going from place to place rather than bogging the film down a bit on the island of the living dead and incredibly stupid people.

As an avid watcher of zombie movies, particularly George A. Romero's Of The Dead movies, I was optimistic for this latest instalment. Survival of the Dead is Romero's sixth Of The Dead movie, but after 2007's disappointing Diary of the Dead it's beginning to show that he's running out of ideas.

Survival of the Dead does try to put an original spin on things though, with a group of people attempting to get the zombies to feast upon something other than human flesh. It's an interesting idea, too bad it isn't played out as well as it could be. The acting isn't as bad as in Diary of the Dead, despite its relatively low budget feel and slow story progression, it manages to outdo Diary of the Dead in literally every way.

Another major flaw: it's not scary at all. Romero's previous Of The Dead instalments (we'll forget Diary) have all been, at least, a little scary. This, sadly, is where Survival fails. There isn't anything even remotely scary here, and the jumps are far in between and very, very few. Romero leaves the scare factor box well and truly unchecked.

As you may have gathered, it's not terribly amazing stuff, but the cast all play likable characters and there's enough gore in here to satisfy. Nothing on Dawn of the Dead but miles better than Diary of the Dead.

http://www.ukmore.tk/

But George Romero should just stop. No, not stop altogether. But stop making "...Of The Dead" movies. It's become so generic that even the name of the studio is "Blank Of The Dead Productions". People seem to forget that Romero ever did anything besides zombie flicks. He did...and he did them damn well. Just look at the original version of the recently remade The Crazies. When "Land..." came out, I thought it was a rare miss. Then came "Diary..." and I thought it was weak, but I was still hopeful. Now with "Survival..." I'm about ready to give up.

The story is pretty standard zombie stuff...a group of living folks just looking for a place to be zombie free. Fair enough. The problem is that it's just that...standard. Romero's earlier work, even when lacking in gore, was great because it was full of some subtle but still heavy social commentary. The only thing going on here is a second half plot line that turns into an Irish version of a Hatfield vs. McCoy situation. Sure, there's a lame last minute attempt to teach us a lesson that revenge doesn't get you anywhere, but it's too little too late. The film is certainly better than a lot of zombie films we've been treated to as of late, but that's sure not saying much.

Truth be told I was really excited to see another Romero flick (and not Cameron Romero). Now I'm just kind of wishing the elder Romero would leave well enough alone and move onto something besides beating this dead horse.