Review of Survival of the Dead (2010) by John G — 03 Mar 2011

Romero's low budget but marvellously gory follow up to Diary of the Dead is a somewhat more humorous movie (albeit very darkly so) and much less ironic and self knowing in tone. In many ways it is a throwback to his earlier zombie films - in particular Day of the Dead with it's main theme of deranged individuals trying to control and even domesticate the shambling hordes in some way.

Romero - being the originator of this genre - is well aware that a zombie movie is primarily about the interactions of desperate survivors in the face of an undead onslaught, and that the true villains of the piece are members of the living who are callous or downright sociopathic enough to sacrifice others to achieve their own ends (which generally entails not being eaten alive). In this movie we have two opposing factions who have both taken residence on Plum Island: An area of refuge just off the coast of Delaware that the staggering, biting dead have yet to reach... or so it seems.

Fleeing the mainland to this apparent haven are a group of national guardsmen (one's a woman); the leader of whom made a cameo appearance in Diary of the Dead. I was pleasantly surprised that Romero went to the trouble of continuing the continuity from that film, as this is not something that sequel directors always bother with. Though Survival is filmed in a very different style (the camcorder "Blair Witch" approach has been abandoned in favour of conventional camera techniques), I got the distinct feeling that this was very much the same world and that the two films fitted together very nicely.

There is definitely more of a comic tone to this film than Diary, though at the same time it is somewhat more gory and visceral. Indeed this is probably the most graphic of Romero's films since Day of the Dead. The humour does take a lot of the edge off the violence however, but fortunately never goes to far as to turn the whole thing into parody in the vein of Shaun of the Dead. Acting is on the whole passable and about as good as you can expect from a low budget movie of this particular genre.

Normally I'd probably mark this as a 3.5 star film, but being a film about zombies by the master of zombie films grants it a half star boost. If your a horror film fan then go and see this now.