Survival of the dead reviews thread

[bassman]

Herein lies the problem. Just like John Carpenter will never have another Halloween, Wes Craven another Nightmare on Elm Street (the first one, not the shit sequels) Romero will never be able to recapture the original trilogy. It was the right time, the right place and the right film in that period - that can and never will be recaptured. Exactly. Not only will Romero never capture that same lightning in a bottle, but even if he came close our expectations such as "The next Dawn" can NEVER be met. The film has been simering in our heads for 30+ years. It's reached a life beyond what it was when created. It's a special nostalgic part of our lives and nothing can ever, or will ever be able to live up to that. Creating a box like that is only going to hurt your opinion of the films rather than going in with an open minded "this is something all together new".

[CoinReturn]

Just wanted to chime in and say SotD was way better than I thought it'd be. I liked it better than Land and Diary, anyhow.

[Mr.G]

Exactly. Not only will Romero never capture that same lightning in a bottle, but even if he came close our expectations such as "The next Dawn" can NEVER be met. The film has been simering in our heads for 30+ years. It's reached a life beyond what it was when created. It's a special nostalgic part of our lives and nothing can ever, or will ever be able to live up to that. Creating a box like that is only going to hurt your opinion of the films rather than going in with an open minded "this is something all together new". Great response. If I could give you some virtual reputation I would!

[MinionZombie]

Herein lies the problem. Just like John Carpenter will never have another Halloween, Wes Craven another Nightmare on Elm Street (the first one, not the shit sequels) Romero will never be able to recapture the original trilogy. It was the right time, the right place and the right film in that period - that can and never will be recaptured. That being said, I'm going to borrow Dj's copy and check it out for myself. After Land & Diary, I don't have very high hopes so I doubt Survival will disappoint. Exactly. Not only will Romero never capture that same lightning in a bottle, but even if he came close our expectations such as "The next Dawn" can NEVER be met. The film has been simering in our heads for 30+ years. It's reached a life beyond what it was when created. It's a special nostalgic part of our lives and nothing can ever, or will ever be able to live up to that. Creating a box like that is only going to hurt your opinion of the films rather than going in with an open minded "this is something all together new". Spot on, lads.

[paranoid101]

It was meh tbh. Better than diary maybe but still not a good film. Special effects were really good when CGI wasn't used, when it was it was crap. The film started strongly but went down hill for me when the Island parts started. I'm not sure were George is going with his zombies in films now, It started in day with Bub getting smarter after months of training, now only 3 weeks into the outbreak they are starting and driving cars, riding horses, cooking meals etc Were in the hell on that small island did so many zombies come from? were they really clumsy or maybe people on that island suffered from sudden death syndrome, cause that's the only way I could think of the island ended up with so many, seeing how they only seemed to be the 2 main family's there and maybe a few others, but to have that many zombies there shouldn't have been any survivors at all lol Silly or stupid deaths for interesting cast members, Sarge's second in command the little bold solider, I liked him would have like to have seen more of him in the film, but no he died from the magic bullet, Muldoon second in command the cowboy in love with O'Flynn daughter, another person I wanted to know more about, only for him not to be fleshed out and to die it a crap way. Also bringing in the young lad to the main group from the redneck firefight and not fleshing out his character, he might as well have not been put in the film for all he brought to it. The gun fight at the end, all through the film they are one shot zombies from miles away, the gun fight start and what looks to be a distance of about 30 feet neither side can hit shit. Deep down I really feel there was a good film trying to get out, but it just seemed to be poor script writing, I wasn't even bother about any of the cast at all apart for maybe Sarge if they survived. I feel that if George had have just made the film about Sarges group survival in the opening 3 week of the outbreak it would have been a much stronger and enjoyable film, seeing them doing hit and run on shops, other bandit groups etc. Daughter just decides that the horse looks tasty?????? Plus points. Make up effect were great as always with zombies. Sarge the main cast member was fantastic and really kept me watching. I must admit I liked the end scene with the main 2 Irish men against the moon, still trying to shoot each other even through death. Sarges squad. Err thats about it really. These are just my points of view and if you really liked the film then thats fine too, each to their own as the saying go's. Daft thing is even after writing all the negative points I bet i still end up buying this film like I did with diary

[Danny]

From plenty of the bad reviews of this online ive noticed that the negative points arent about the film at all really. just that romero made something different to his original trilogy that isnt an escape to let people live out there isolationist end of the world fantasies. Survival wasn't anything special in terms of cinematic prowess, but it was a flick where romero did something different, and i'd rather have that than another film about the end of the world in one location. romeros done it, and he did it the best way anybody has ever done, but he cant make the same movie forever.

[Ghost Of War]

Just been over on IMDB, and had to share this nugget: Hilariously Bad, 15 March 2010 Author: Brian Tipton from Los Angeles, CA Well, at this point it certainly seems that George Romero has left any bag of tricks he may have had behind. Gone is the biting social satire, gone is the moody innovation, gone is the quotable dialogue. Survival is a movie by definition only. It's roughly two hours long, has people on screen playing something other than themselves. It even has a script, if you want to call it that. None of these elements have even the smallest amount of believability or dimension. Within 15 seconds of the film starting, I was already cringing at the acting, dialogue, and cinematography. It really only gets worse from there. Romero seems hell bent on creating caricatures instead of real characters. Every line in the film is more idiotic than the last. Who calls their neighbors by their first AND last names. His dialogue comes from 70's B-movie clichés that are no longer useful, unless used ironically, and the meaning of true irony seems well out of Romero's grasp at this point. I'm now 10 minutes into the film and had to stop and write this review. Another crapfest from the supposed master of the genre. I recommend watching Rec. or Rec. 2 if you want a solid zombie fix. Skip this one unless you're a completist or want to see how NOT to make a film. Oh Come On. I'm not a good reviewer of anything, but even I wouldn't stop 10 mins into a film to write a crap review. Christ. It just made me angry, that's all.

[MinionZombie]

From plenty of the bad reviews of this online ive noticed that the negative points arent about the film at all really. just that romero made something different to his original trilogy that isnt an escape to let people live out there isolationist end of the world fantasies. Survival wasn't anything special in terms of cinematic prowess, but it was a flick where romero did something different, and i'd rather have that than another film about the end of the world in one location. romeros done it, and he did it the best way anybody has ever done, but he cant make the same movie forever. Darn tootin' ... there's a lot of pining for Pittsburgh-era GAR in amongst the territory of folks who rally against GAR's latest flicks ... ... but as I said in my review, Pittsburgh-era GAR is long gone - and it left behind a great back catalogue - we're now in the Toronto-era, the world is an entirely different place, filmmaking is conducted in an entirely different manner than in the 60s-80s, and well ... goddamn, people.

[Mike70]

survival is a bad movie in my not so humble opinion. a cringe inducing, illogical and ultimately idiotic film that i wasted 90 mins of my life watching. it's not a bad flick because it failed to live up to my "expectations" of romero. i have none. it should be clear that i am not a fanboy and outside of day (and a few other films), i have very little interest left in romero's work and almost zero interest in the original dawn. survival is a bad movie because of the acting, the effects, the script, and as a special pet peeve of mine - those fucking irish accents. i don't give a rat's ass about theories as to why some of the people on the island spoke like that but it was fooking irritating. i just didn't buy into this "story" from jumpstreet. nothing about this film is significant, moving, or even relatively interesting. this is one of those films where you wish every single character died at the end, caught in a moment of their own gross stupidity. there you go- the opinion of someone who doesn't look at dawn through rose colored glasses.

[DrSiN]

My DVD finally got here and I could spend an hour or so picking it apart. Out of his latest 3 movies, this one was the best, but only by a bit. In my opinion it was a solid C. Most of the effort was hampered by a really bad script. The acting, while uneven had it's moments. The cinematography was decent. The sound design was pretty good. the story however, was a mess. Scenes were poorly setup or pointless. Characters that had no purpose. Blah blah blah. But it was still better than Diary and Land. Had the story been solid, this would have approached Day at #3.

[bassman]

I enjoyed it. A few parts that I wasn't too happy about, but overall it was a decent flick. Mainly the bad parts were the CGI gags. The non-physical gags were all good though. Made me laugh a few times. Of the three new ones Land is the best, Survival is second, and Diary last.

[Exatreides]

Ah Survival of the dead. Here's ex's take on it. Just a few things to point out before we start that bugged me a little... I'm in the Army National Guard, and no one has used Jeeps since the early 1990's. No has worn BDU's since about 2006 (Short of some random gear being still in BDU, helmet covers, poncho's ect) No one in the Guard has had a m16a1 since about 1996 when the last ones were phased out in the guard. I know these are just nit picking things, but for me at least they really took the feel out of it. Imagine if in 28 weeks later they had been wearing olive drab. flying huey's and shooting m14's at the runners. I really wish they would have explained a bit more of the situation as to why they were going AWOL. Maybe they could have linked up or mentioned the other group of Guard members that were in Diary (The group of blacks and others in the warehouse) I feel like finding the group of hunters in the woods was an attempt by Romero at pushing some Hillbilly racist thing (Notice all the heads were black) The hunters were all dumb rednecks. Maybe this was an attempt to link back to night and killing Ben? Besides that one point it just seemed like a weak way to get the kid to hook up with them. Who besides having the phone served no real point in the film. I really didn't like his character at all. The Mexican guy I dug him, and thought he had a bit of comedic value as well as just being more interesting then the cookie cutter sarge and his BDU wearing buddy. When he died I was pretty disappointed. So the water was deep enough for a ferry to get through... I Guess those were some really tall zombies then! Hell I even thought that the cookie cutter bdu buddy was decent to keep around. The Lesbian chick was good, but I feel like Romero could have used her a bit more. She made it that for in the outbreak only to end up being a Dasmal in distress? I would have liked to see her and the Mexican guy have stronger roles. In a time where both Immigration reform and gay rights are major issues in the US... Romero has the Mexican getting killed swimming the rio grande and the Lesbian carried away and tied up by angry men. Since when were there fucking Irish isles off the coast of Delaware? That part just seemed a bit rushed to me. As did the fact that everyone seemingly had turn of the 20th century weaponry. (Where did they get the ammo?) Are there no cars on this isle? Where the fuck does the power come from? I also think the chained up zombies remembering what they did is a bit rushed. Feels like it just degrades bub and even dare I say big daddy. The Clan thing felt like it was an poor way of establishing a conflict and following it through. Horse riding zombie..Really? It takes a lot of balance and coordination to ride a horse, let alone a horse that never ever gets tired. The zombies in pens thing.. Romero had that in the Original script of Day, when he mentioned training them to fight and do all that stuff. A holdover from that script maybe? The gore was average and sci fi channel at best. The fire extinguisher thing was pretty terrible I think. Overall... As a general zed film I'd give it a... 79% It's above average when it comes to some of the terrible terrible things out there, if it tried a bit harder in a few area's it would have been good. Far from great though. As a Romero film... 70% It was better then Diary, worse then Land and further cements my belief not to believe in future good Romero movies.

[clanglee]

You know, I actually agree with most of the above, and I had some minor other gripes of my own, but for some reason I still came away liking this film. It's weird.

[CooperWasRight]

In a time where both Immigration reform and gay rights are major issues in the US... Romero has the Mexican getting killed swimming the rio grande and the Lesbian carried away and tied up by angry men. FUCKING HILARIOUS! I agree with a lot of what you said... I also agree with your scale on the new trilogy placement.

[krakenslayer]

Anyone notice the thematic similarities to Night?:   Right at the end, the asshole character we're set up to hate turns out to have been right about one important thing, just like Cooper with the basement. Also, a character being suddenly shot dead at an opportune moment by a semi-sympathetic character who has misread the situation and doesn't realise the consequences. I thought that was pretty cool.