Review of Survival of the Dead (2010) by Nathan H — 18 Oct 2010

"Survival of the Dead" is probably the worst zombie film that George Romero has directed, which is really saying something: when I was in a fraternity as an undergraduate, I used to haze my "little brother" by making him watch "Day of the Dead," the atrocious, humorless, mean-spirited gore-fest from the early '80s about zombies in a military installation.

Romero has made six of these zombie movies, and I suppose it's a testament to his creative ability and imagination that he's found a way to continue making them new and fresh and interesting over the course of thirty or forty years..."Land of the Dead" was an ambitious look at a post-apocalyptic world that has developed a new ruling class, and "Diary of the Dead" was a fantastic "Cloverfield"-esque approach to zombies, even offering some social commentary on the YouTube Generation...but "Survival of the Dead" is the first time where I've actually thought that Romero was out of ideas.

Nothing in this film feels inspired. The special effects are poor. The characters are thin and often resort to repeating the same one-liners over and over again. The sets and settings are badly established and filmed. The script is comically bad. This feels less like a creative effort than it does the fulfillment of a contract. It's like everyone is just going through the motions, and if you thought that zombies are creatures that are always just going through the motions, then you haven't seen "Survival of the Dead." Even the zombies are boring and lame, here.

The greatest failure of the film, though, is that it sort of forgets that it's a zombie movie, and Romero tries to focus on the human drama. But he's not really a great director of "human drama," and so much of the film just comes across as cheesy. Like a bad USA show. We watch "Survival of the Dead" because we want zombies, and if "Land of the Dead" wasn't quite successful because it was too ambitious for a zombie movie, then "Survival of the Dead" is an absolute failure because it has zero ambition.

After "Diary of the Dead" (which I really enjoyed), I was looking forward to this movie. Too bad, George Romero. Too bad.