Hooptober #29

A pitiful end to both the Dead series and Romero's career, Survival of the Dead offers little new to the franchise and fails to deliver on the themes and satire Romero is famous for. The first five movies dealt with big themes like Cold War tension, consumerism, scientific ethics, class divide, and journalistic ethics respectively, but Survival of the Dead is a much more muddled affair. It's hard to discern quite what Survival of the Dead has to say about anything, apart from some sentiments about tribalism. But whether the film is actually making a point about tribalism or just showing people being shitty to each other remains to be seen. Especially as humans treating each other worse than the zombies is a recurring theme throughout Romero's films. Unfortunately, Survival of the Dead doesn't counter its unlikeable characters with people worth caring about, so all the pointless violence doesn't have much emotional impact. It also mimics Night of the Living Dead with a similarly ironic ending, except it isn't the bitter gut-punch it should be.

As a horror film, Survival of the Dead is a disappointing affair. The gore is, aside from a few good moments in the final act, uniformly terrible and done with really obvious CGI. The deaths are certainly original, but they're also ridiculously goofy. The fact that it is over acted and filled with clunky dialogue and one-liners only cements Survival of the Dead as a thoroughly non-scary movie.

It also makes no sense. The setting (an island off the coast of the USA filled with Irish people who live as if in the 19th century) is utterly ludicrous and lacks the our-world-but-not-our-world approach of the previous films. Then we get an incredibly convoluted plot where all the characters lack a good motivation for almost anything they do. I understand that Romero was aiming to make a zombie western, but the contrivances used to achieve that just belabour any point he could be trying to make by utilising such a genre.

Ultimately Survival of the Dead is beyond disappointing. It has a few thrills and some strong moments, but it otherwise fails to provides characters, themes, or ideas worth caring about. It's just a mess, and not even an enjoyable one. It's so sad that perhaps horror's finest director ended his career on such a whimper.

2010 Ranked
George A. Romero Ranked
Romero's Living Dead Ranked