Survival of the Dead
Release Date: 5/28/2010 – Rated R
Starring: Al Van Sprang (Diary of the Dead), Athena Karkanis (Diary of the Dead)
Plot Summary: As a zombie plague sweeps the world, two families feud on an island located off the coast of Delaware. The Muldoons, who want to keep the zombies alive to train them, are battling with the neighbors across the river; the O’Flynns, who just want to kill all the zombies and be done with it. After about 5 minutes of some wasted movie time the Muldoons win and kick the patriarch of the O’Flynns off the island. Meanwhile in movie B, a ragtag group of army deserters: a lesbian, a hispanic guy, and a dude named Kenny are led by a poor man’s George Clooney named Crockett. They encounter some rednecks who make a game out of hunting the zombies (just like in the original Night of the Living Dead), shoot it out with them, and pick up a straggler named “kid”. They are lured to the coast by an internet video promising a ride to Plum Island where it’s zombie free. They arrive only to find that it’s a setup used to rip off anyone stupid enough to fall for it, and boy are those army guys stupid. A shootout ensues with the harbor bandits that are led by the ostracised O’Flynn, as one person swims through the zombie filled harbor to get to a ferry boat which conveniently has gas. The harbor bandits have just one survivor as the smoke clears and to no one’s surprise it is the outcast O’Flynn. He heads with the deserters to the island hoping to have some help getting a wee bit of revenge. They arrive on the island only to find zombies everywhere, albeit they are chained down and repeating actions that they did in life, a zombie mailman keeps going to the mailbox and putting mail in it etc….(MESSAGE!) Blah blah blah Kenny gets shot by a Muldoon, (Oh my god they killed Kenny!) and the hispanic fellow swallowed some zombie blood while taking that swim and now he’s not doing so well. At this point you should just turn off the movie, I know I wish I did. Blah blah blah there’s a showdown, and as in previous Romero zombie movies the people experimenting on the zombies get theirs.
Alex’s Thoughts: Just awful, Dirary of the Dead was awful, and I’m suprised this even got made. I feel like Romero peaked at Dawn of the Dead, and everything else he’s done since is trying to tell a message using zombies that no one wants to hear. I get it, there are issues you want to bring to light, but maybe using zombies as a metaphor is just too stale now and you need to move on. Sorry to rant, but this movie is really poor with low production value, I’d rather sit in a proctology waiting room for and hour and a half. Lets teach zombies to eat horses instead of people, really? Hopefully the is the last ____ of the Dead movie, because I’m too dumb not to watch if there is another one, and I’ve got no one to blame but myself. Stupid self .
Tim’s Thoughts: Skip it, I liked Diary of the Dead, and was ok with Land of the Dead, but this is just pathetic. I say this as a George Romero sycophant, I LOVE his earlier movies, especially the early stuff, but he has been in major decline since the early nineties. The die hards will remember at the end of Dawn of the Dead they talk about finding an island to live on, and I was so hoping that this would be that movie, a true sequel to finish out the trilogy, not that Day of the Dead crap. This movie seemed like people were sitting around a table trying to think of really strange ways to kill zombies. The effects are nothing near what they were when Romero was working hand in hand with make-up master Tom Savini, not to mention that his attempts at black humor just come up bland, and sort of obvious. If you want a funny and or ironic zombie movie check out Zombieland, or even better Shaun of the Dead, but in an era where not only these 2 movies but also Zach Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” and Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” this one just comes up short. Night of the Living Dead revolutionized not only zombie movies but really added to horror as a genre. If baseball has taught me anything, its showed that no matter how awesome our heroes are, they are only human.
Final Thoughts: Pass, rent one of the aforementioned films and actually enjoy your evening.
Alex Rates this Movie 3/10
Tim Rates this Movie 1/10
This is where we usually put in our favorite quote, but all the dialog is the verbal equivlent of a fart.
Men on Film 
Maybe I was in just the right mood to watch this when I saw it because I enjoyed the film. I liked the spaghetti western feel. Sure, it was hokey, but it was a fun movie. I felt like Romero was finally just being silly with his zombies and giving social commentary a big middle finger with the Hatfield/McCoy plot because in this story no one wins. He wasn’t taking himself seriously. I enjoy Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead for the humorous look at zombies and the new zombie films for their homage to the original social comment of the zombie, but I felt like Survival was refreshing-a good change of pace-something light. I don’t like going into a movie with expectations set from previous films the writer/director has done (I know its hard). Artists change and Romero is old. His view of the world is different so his films will inevitably be different. I saw this as a guy who was tired of meeting expectations so, he just did something he wanted to do because it would be fun. I’ll tell ya…I would have rather seen Tom Savini’s blue zombies with bright red blood to secure a spaghetti western feel, but unfortunately, I don’t think people would “buy” those zombies today. I was terribly disappointed with the use of CGI for some of the effects. Overall, it was a light fun ride…I wouldn’t watch it again, but I enjoyed it.
I thought Diary was WAY better, and at no time did I think the “I’m gonna kill you! no wait it’s the zombie behind you that I’m gonna kill” thing was old in the 70’s. He did it like 4 times in this one. Just lazy….