Le Vestige des morts-vivants

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/

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).

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

25 years ago, I sat open-mouthed in awe of the intense visceral horror experience that was George Romero's Day of the Dead; today, I sat jaw agape once more at the director's latest zombie flick, Survival of the Dead, although for a very different reason: utter disbelief!

How could George Romero, the creator of the modern movie zombie, get everything so totally wrong?

With Survival, it looks like the director has finally taken on board the criticism aimed at his last two films and ditched the heavy-handed social commentary (the messages are still there, but are far less 'in-your-face'); unfortunately, somewhere during the creative process, he's also unwisely opted to up the level of comedy, meaning that much of this film plays the global zombie threat for laughs.

Remember how Romero used the slapstick custard pie scene in Dawn of the Dead to momentarily relieve the tension? Well in this one, it's all 'custard pie' and absolutely no tension. During the course of the film, we get to witness several cringe-worthy comedy zombie slayings, a hilarious bitter feud between two stereotypical Irish clans, a zombie woman on horseback, a car ferry strangely moored in six feet of water, zombie fishing, plus loads of other nonsense that beggars belief. Not once, however, do we get a sense of dread. The closest Romero ever comes to delivering the goods is with a couple of cheap jump scares that are accompanied by loud noises and some admittedly splattery gore (that relies a little too heavily on CGI for my liking).

Had Survival of the Dead been made by anyone other than Romero, then I may have rated it as high as 5/10: it's never boring, I suppose. But coming from the guy who practically invented the genre, the film can only be seen as a massive disappointment—easily the worst of his 'Dead' films to date—and therefore fully deserves my lower score of 3/10.

With this latest Dead entry from George, I realize we're never going to approach the original trilogy's greatness ever again. It took 20 years after Day of the Dead (still my favorite) to get to Land of the Dead (entertaining, but nothing new). In the last 5 years, George has cranked out 3 Dead movies. Is he inspired or trying to stay commercially viable? Diary annoyed me with its Scream/Blair Witch hybrid and now, if it's possible to get worse, we have.

Survival of the Dead plays like a TV movie with profanity. I couldn't get over how lifeless this movie was. I appreciate the Irish Western flavor, but that's all that's new here. While watching this, I felt like it was a rehash of Day of the Dead, substituting two feuding Irish families for the feuding military vs scientists. The so-called twist at the end is embarrassingly desperate. I know some fans will want George to make one more great Dead movie and retire the series. After witnessing this second trilogy, I feel the more he makes, the more creatively bankrupt he appears.