Review of Survival of the Dead (2010) by Marc B — 06 Jun 2010

Romero's follow-up to DIARY OF THE DEAD, picks up and focuses on a military team trying to find their own piece of paradise. I've been a George A. Romero fan since I saw NIGHT during my teen years and I've wanted to make my own zombie movie ever since. But as much as I've been a Romero fan, his last effort DIARY OF THE DEAD didn't inspire much of a fan. The film was weakly structure and spent way too much time focusing on politics. Plus there really wasn't enough zombie action to really put forth.

While I'll admit, it's nice that that film went back to core basics and updated the world of NIGHT. Romero had an interesting world going with LAND OF THE DEAD and the door was left wide open for more exploration. With DIARY and SURVIVAL, we're back to basics of surviving and dealing with the undead in ways old and new.

SURVIVAL as it stands has fairly decent zombie moments and the idea of keeping zombies around is an interesting one, but Romero really doesn't take it anywhere. He toys with the notion of people making zombies part of the population and keeping them around, but it pretty much goes back to the basics of some people, never stop fighting their own wars. Even in death.

There's a little suspense here and there and it's good to see Romero back to core basics camera-wise. But this sequel doesn't add anything new to the pot nor does it do anything all that exciting.