Review of Survival of the Dead (2010) by Shannon C — 03 May 2010

I'm not gonna lie, I am an "unabashed" fan of these Romero 'dead' movies, and so this was one of my most anticipated movies of the year... but at the same time I knew that the early reviews weren't good. And yet... no, it's not one of the best of the series. The acting usually isn't something that sticks out, but even here some of these performances are laughable (at the screening I was at, Kathleen Munroe, in her "double" role, was really uproariously bad), and I kind of missed the usual satirical jabbing that is Romero's forte with these pics (I suppose his message here is about extremists?).

And yet, even my least favorite of the series is still a whole lot of fun, is well directed, and actually has some of the best and most entertaining zombie moments in the catalog of Romero's work. Matter of fact, I loved seeing these slow-moving motherfuckers going after the living and the back and forth going on between them. Romero keeps finding ways to kill himself the dead, and that's what makes this a must-see. It's neither a failure nor sometimes really worth defending like 'Diary'. It's more akin to 'Land' where it tries for something more mainstream- in this case a full-blown Irish Western- and it sometimes works well and sometimes... not. But I do know I'll go see it again, and probably get it on DVD.