Review of Survival of the Dead (2010) by Chivalrous C — 04 Jun 2010
I had extremely low expectations from all the bad crits that Romero's sixth Dead film received, and so perhaps I was more surprised than anything that Survival is not the jump the shark picture I was expecting.
There are *severe* problems however, and any film from Romero that isn't excellent is always going to disappoint me to an unrealistic degree. The first five minutes rank as probably the most awful in the entire picture; the tone is all over the place, the acting is beyond awful and fucking CGI is favoured over prosthetics.
It's truly a ghastly opening. Luckily, things do quickly pick-up, although I think Romero has gone too far in trying to make something different - an Irish Western with zombies of all things, with two extended families on a remote island disagreeing with whether the walking dead should be shot instantly or 'trained' to see if they can remember anything of their former life.
Into this a band of faux-military types (one of whom popped up in Diary, thus affirming this is set in the same universe - actually a nice touch) wander, and casualties are the result. Taken as a series of inventive deaths, impressive prosthetics (and some more wobbly CGI), and skilful camerawork and shot set-up, there is much to recommend Survival of the Dead.
The problem of course is that Romero's films were always more than that. Where are the interesting characters, the social commentary, the clever humor? Some of the laughs in this picture are the result of slapstick of all things - I kept expecting comedy music - or of the woeful acting.
The sight of the walking dead 'learning' how to ride a horse or develop a taste for flesh that is not human are so poorly played and overly signposted that they make no impression at all, and the final shot - two bickering archetypes now themselves zombies, but still unable to 'forget' that they are sworn enemies - is almost laughable.
Overall, this is a bumpy, bizarre film - far from a total disaster but clearly a misstep from Romero.
This review of Survival of the Dead (2010) was written by Chivalrous C on 04 Jun 2010.
Survival of the Dead has generally received negative reviews.
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