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Fantastic Fest Review: Survival of the Dead

Posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta

Survival of the Dead

When George Romero walked on stage at the Paramount theatre for the introduction to his latest zombie film Survival of the Dead, over 1,000 Fantastic Festers gave the filmmaker not just one, but two standing ovations. If there is any crowd thankful of Romero’s contributions to cinema, it has to be the film fanatics at the Alamo Drafthouse-run genre festival.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m also very grateful of Romero’s body of work, and I’m not going to claim he doesn’t deserve a standing ovation for his past achievements. But I’m getting tired of celebrating Romero’s recent lackluster additions to the Zombie horror subgenre. Romero hasn’t made a good movie since 1985 when the original Day of the Dead was released.

After Zombie films began to resurface in Hollywood, Romero returned to the genre he helped popularize in 2005 with Land of the Dead. His more independent Blair Witch-style Diary of the Dead was one of the worst films I saw at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. And his latest film premiered in Toronto, and is being celebrated at Fantastic Fest, and I’m not sure why.

For me, Romero is slowly attempting to ruin the genre he helped to create. With Survival of the Dead, we were promised a Zombie movie on an island, with living dead who can walk under water. Yes, the movie has both an island and underwater zombies, but the story chooses to focus on a generational feud between two Irish families, one which believes we should keep the living dead alive until a cure is found or an alternative zombie food source is discovered, while the rival family believes that all zombies should be killed, including those pesky children zombies (another cool concept that is left unexplored).

Many horror fans were angered when Romero decided to give zombies sophisticated cognitive function in Land of the Dead. And with Survival, Romero continues to alter his original zombie rules further, in ways which will no doubt further anger horror fanatics and impact his other planned Diary of the Dead spin-off films. Which reminds me, who really wants to see more Diary of the Dead spin-offs? Did anyone even like Diary of the Dead?

The film features a couple cool zombie kills, but you have to wade through a lot of lackluster drama with uninteresting characters to find it. The truth of the matter is that not only would I not be writing about this movie if it wasn’t directed Romero, but you would probably never hear about it. Sure, Survival is better than Diary of the Dead, in the same way people left GI Joe saying “at least it was better than Transformers 2.” But at the end of the day, that doesn’t make the film any more worth watching.

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About the Author

Peter Sciretta is a film geek and popcultured fanboy living in Los Angeles. He created /Film in 2005.

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  • RJBlakeAAU
    I am actually one of the few people who liked Land of the Dead and can deal with zombies using tools and weapons. Since they have since the beginning when the zombie used the rock to get into the house, they have just been evolving.

    Now, Diary of the Dead just sucked and bad, except for the crazy sequence in the middle with the Amish guy. This looks even worse and more terrible.
  • Isaaac
    Well, Diary of the Dead has a 60% on rotten tomatoes so some people must have liked it.
  • The Green Gobbler
    Just reading this reminded me of how much I hated 'Diary of the Dead'. Romero made 4 great movies: 'Night', 'Dawn', 'Day' and 'Creepshow'. I guess that's more than most can say. I wish he would have left the zombie genre after 'Day'. He's fading away instead of burning out bright.
  • Vince
    Watch 'Martin'. It's a great movie.
  • peter
    Land of the Dead was great, I don't care who you are!
  • elharris84
    I liked Land of the Dead, but Diary was awful. I know he was trying to get back to his "roots" by making a low budget zombie movie, but where does CG blood fit into the low budget scheme? Is computer blood really cheaper than corn syrup and red dye? Please tell me he went back to practical effects with this one.
  • nemon
    Can't put those squibs on actors anymore.
  • elharris84
    Are you sure about that or do you at least have a source to back that information up? I know I've seen movies since Diary that feature people getting shot with squibs (or other, safer devices) going off. And even if the whole squib thing is true, he could always just cut away rather than showcase the crappy computer blood.
  • KingCarlos
    "Can't put those squibs on actors anymore."

    Utter crap.
  • deathmetalhero
    I liked and continue to like Diary of the Dead. As well as land, and I am sure I will like this movie. face.
  • I think you and I are the only 2 in this boat in this territory.
  • korayyersel
    I found both of two movies quite OK too. From my point of view other directors in the zombie genre are just repeating them selfs. Some new effects, some new cool gory scenes (which I find really OK btw) But for me Romero was the only director, who is adding some new stuff to his own genre. Maybe zombies using tools is not cool or does not make sense, but the movie had a real good political message (not sure that I am using the right words but I guess you get me) Same thing with Diary of the Dead. Maybe not the best zombie scenes or effects. But the way Romero handles his characters and 'background' story was making the movie worth to enjoy.
  • saeseetom
    Nope, I'm with you on that. I'll watch them all a million times rather than see Quarantine again.
  • Fir3Wolf
    I didn't really like Land of the Dead all that much but I did kind of like Diary. Sure Romero has lost his way a bit, but I still found some enjoyment outta his last couple movies. I'm a sucker for most zombie based movies, heck I even saw Dance of the Dead which was far from good.
  • oh man, Dance of the Dead was awesome. It was goofy fun.
  • Hi_there
    Dance of the Dead was good, I actually know alot of people involved in it too so maybe I am a little biased, but whatever you do... do NOT watch Gangs of the Dead (the former movie, Last Rites)... I sat through a half hour of that on showtime the other night and I'm still hurting from how horrible it was.
  • Jackson
    Dance of the Dead is my favorite zombie movie next to Shaun.
  • probot
    I enjoyed Land of the Dead but loathed Diary of the Dead so I'll go into watching this with an open mind...on Dvd.
  • nemon
    Land of the Dead rocked and it was packed with so many ideas that it demanded a sequel. There was so much going on in that setting that it could have been developed into a TV series without stretching thin.

    I have no idea why you would say Romero is "ruining" the zombie genre, as opposed to everyone who's just been ripping him off this past decade. Never mind the fact that running zombies have been around since Return of the Living Dead; the Zack Snyder/Danny Boyle pictures are horror "action" movies from guys who have no idea how to stage or shoot action. The scripts are garbage, too.

    Romero, at least, almost always has something to say. Most everyone else just remakes Night of the Living Dead over and over again: "Oh no! There are zombies out here! Let's run into that building! Oh no! There are zombies in the building too! Now we human characters have to fight each other, because that's what happened in '68!"

    Haven't seen Survival, but up until now the only zombie movies worth a damn in this decade have been Shaun of the Dead, Land of the Dead, and Fido. If Fido winds up being the last word on the genre, that's fine.
  • jasonb26
    i liked LOTD. thought it was pretty cool - even though i am one of the folks who did not like cogni-zombies either. but i cannot fault romero for trying to take a genre he birthed into new directions. i thought that he would be able to shake a few kinks out with 1 or 2 mediocre films (LOTD & DOTD), but i am getting disappointed by the less than favorable reviews of this new one.

    i'd never say he has peaked, or is out of talent, but maybe he needs to do a film that has nothing to do with zombies at all, then return later. like when woody allen went to london, or raimi doing DMTH after the long sabbatical from horror, or why nolan does those others in between the bat-films. maybe if romero took a 'working vacation' from the un-dead, he'd return to brilliance.

    i dunno, but it also reminds me of every M. knight release, where we are hesitantly saying, "ok, this has got to be the one where he reminds us why we love(d) him...right?"
  • CyT
    Poor Romero, Im not sure what happened to him but he has lost the art of what to focus on within his films. The originals feel interesting and poignant but his later ones do not. Land of the Dead was ok but not great, Diary of the Dead was a really good idea but badly executed. This one sounds like a bad idea and from your article also badly executed. Such a shame :(
  • "Land of the Dead" was good fun. At first, I didn't care for the movie. After a second viewing, I grew to appreciate it much more. Romero did something different in the subgenre he helped form. Zombies having memories and using tools? Sure! It ended up being a great idea that paid homage to "Day of the Dead," because it was always speculated that zombies could learn to do things they might have done while human. Like previous posters have said: the zombies simply kept evolving.

    And I really like "Diary of the Dead." While it's not Romero's crowning achievement, it's a solid addition to his series. I always used to wonder how Romero would portray the zombie outbreak in a modern setting. I like how "Diary" is simply another perspective that could be seen as "Night of the Living Dead 1.5." Sure, it has some rolling-the-eyes humor in it, but at the end of the day, it was another solid chapter to the man's storytelling.

    I've yet to see "Survival of the Dead," but am looking forward to it. It looks a bit more humorous than I might like, but I'll give any Romero project a fair shake.
  • riggs
    someone please make a walking dead TV series and show these people how its done....PLEASE.
  • rant
    I actually loved this film. I found it to be much tighter and more involving than Dairy and found the characters - sketchy though they are to be much more memorable - one or two standouts too. It was also very funny with some great sight gags- quite unexpected but the film is a lot of fun and I think the problem is people have an expectation to what they expect from a Romero Zombie film- mainly probably influenced by the 20 years of zombie films made by others in between his movies. Dawn of the Dead pie fight! He made the rules and there's no way he's destroying the genre. Nonsense. He's exploring it and good on him for it. The film is cheap- but doesnt really look it- and cheerful and well worth your time. Best film since Day of the Dead- and I quite liked Land and can see the flaws in Diary but at least he was trying something- and actually had it planned before the glut of handheld pov movies that came out much faster than he could finish it.
  • Dead_Wasp
    George......is that you ?
    (+__O)
  • I found Diary of the Dead to be one of the worst movies I'd seen in a long time when I watched it the first time, and I'm sure the disappointment would have been even worse had Land of the Dead been better than it was. I remember saying immediately after seeing Land of the Dead that Romero should probably consider retiring himself from zombie flicks...I'm not at all excited to see this movie. I actually am leaning towards avoidance.
  • salad_fingers
    A lot more excited for REC2, which comes out this weekend, than SOTD. I thought the first film, although not totally original, had a lot more scares than most recent zombie flicks. Very claustrophobic.

    It was filmed down the road from where I live which added to the whole fear levels for me. Seeing a building that's that familiar full of zombies on the cinema screen leaves an impression. *shudders*

    I'll be in line on Friday for the second part.
  • Dead_Wasp
    I'm a big fan of 'REC'...I love the idea that the Infected/ghouls where actually infected with demonically possessed blood. And the ending with the possessed Patient Zero in the attic room was a killer.
    (o__O)
  • Dead_Wasp
    There's a fun UK sci-fi film called 'Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel'.
    One of the ideas from the film is that a certain group of people can travel back in time and 'Take Out' the creators of seminal works of art/films/books etc... the reason being that they have reached their peak and if allowed to live will then proceed to 'fuck shit up' by producing sub-standard tripe, consequently sullying the great works that came before.
    Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing....Romero....1985.....you with me?
  • Tom
    Romero has always been a shaky filmmaker with some brilliant ideas, including one EPIC idea that spawned a thousand movies.

    His execution is always now and always has been heavy handed and obvious, and his sensibilities are mired in the early 80's. LOTD and DOTD are both terrible movies with little to recommend them to non-fans and less to recommend to zombie freaks. I think Romero would benefit from having a little more collaboration with other film writers and directors. A low budget doesn't have to look awful and read worse.
  • For some weird reason, I had a dream I watched this movie. At some point in the film, everyone's a zombie. If you've watched the movie, don't spoil it for me.
  • I think it is one of the worst movie. I never wish to watch this movie once again. I will never suggest anybody for this movie. It is totally wastage of timings as well as money.
  • Joachim
    Diaro of the dead must have been one of the best zombie films I've seen. Finally some creativity from Romero which I've lacked in recent years. Diary actually made me hope that Romero finally found a way to revive the genre. Can't wait to see this one...
  • hammer
    "Land of the dead" was just plain weak compared to the remake of "dawn of the dead". The pace was too slow, and too few hungry killer zombies - 6 billion people on earth, mostly dead, and we see just a handful of the same ones? The social/political plot line was boring, too much time spent on the class distinctions not enough on the essence of zombie operas - the struggle for personal and "wolf pack" survival against overwhelming odds. What happened to chewing up zombie guts with mini-guns, flamethrowers, and cannons shooting steel frisbees? The final insults were the pseudo-hero not drilling "smarter zombie's" head into a bloody stump and happy face survivors driving off into hopeful future celebrating with fireworks - total crap!
    Survival of the dead better be twice the movie "land of the dead" could have been or Romero is done. In the end there is no possibility of hope only the resignation that you MAY have another day, and probably not. No one gets out of here alive in any case - fantasy or reality.
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