Review of Survival of the Dead (2010) by Joshua B — 30 May 2010

What a disappointment from George Romero ("Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead"). This feels like a straight-to-DVD movie, definitely not up to par with other Romero films. The acting is bad. There were also concepts of this movie I had a hard time accepting. Zombies using automobiles, guns, and riding horses is too much. I always thought the zombies lived on instinct or meeting their needs. If they showed up at a mall because that's what they did when they lived, I'm fine with that. Zombies being able to ride a horse - and not falling off right away - I can't accept. Something I always wondered that was expressed in this movie is why don't the zombies eat other non-human animals. This idea is one of the few bright spots from this dismal film.

The story is about two rival families with countering views on what to do with the zombies. One side wants to kill them, the other wants to save them and wait for a cure. This idea would have been good if this was the focus of the film. It became more about the two patriarchs and I didn't care enough about their stories. Some of the characters of this film briefly intersect with the main characters from "Diary of the Dead", which was nice to see. I can't recall any other time in Romero's movies where characters actually carrie over from other films.

There were moments where the CGI in this film made me cringe (i.e. shooting the heads on the sticks). There was a decent amount of gore towards the end and it didn't look bad. This film felt different because I didn't feel like the main characters felt endangered by the zombies. I think the only film with fewer zombies was "Night of the Living Dead".

I have never walked out of a movie before but I had the urge to leave during this. I don't mind George making some tweaks to how zombies behave, I mean he's pretty much the father of American zombie flicks, but there are things I can't accept. I can't believe how cheap this movie looks. I can stomach the handheld camera shots from "Diary of the Dead" way more than the crap that is this movie. I haven't been this disappointed in a franchise I really liked since Spielberg and Lucas tag teamed what was suppose to be "Indiana Jones 4". 1/5 stars. (5/31/10).