Survival vs Diary

[Shawn Wilcox]

Ok so I just seen survival of the dead for the first time and needless to say it was the worst GAR dead film ever. I haven't seen diary of the dead yet and wondering if I should even bother, I love the first four films and yes I include land of the dead as well. Anyway any thoughts?

[Zombie Snack]

My opinion, both are bad movies, but for me Diary of the dead was the better of the two films. The best of the worse if you will.

[Shawn Wilcox]

Yeah I wish they had a double pack with both so I don't totally waste my money. I have the first four original films and I'm content with that at the moment!

[AcesandEights]

I actually liked Survival better than Diary. I get what Diary was trying to do, but it didn't really do it for me. Survival, while having some whacky parts and downright poorly thought out characterization and plot elements, also had a few decent little hints at what could have been a great zombie film. In the end, neither really delivered for me and both remain, in my opinion, plain ol' bad.

[shootemindehead]

There's no "verses"...they stand arm in arm, locked together in terrible unison, on the large pile of crap that Romero's career has become.

Hopefully, if there is to be a new film from Geroge, he can get it together and produce something good again.

[facestabber]

If you could sit through Survival you can sit through Diary. The magic of Romero ended with Day.

[MoonSylver]

I liked Diary. I didn't really care for Survival as much, though I warmed to it slightly over time. Of the two I think Diary is much better & not as bad as some would have it, whereas Survival probably does deserve some to most of the lumps it gets.

[Danny]

I tried rewatching both recently and survival is a better movie. Neither of the day/dawn standards but iary is this preachy, condescending mess of a film where its so cheesy at points - thought lacking romeros trademark charm with cheese- that it feels like this is the other cabin in the woods group that failed to show up on time or something.
Survival on the other hand, for all its faults just feels like george wanted to make a zombie movie again. Its not as good as his earlier ones but its about the characters, not some subtextual message. Its two feuding groups in an isolated location in the zombie apocalypse. thats a proper romero zombie flick. the zombies are just this natural disaster and george shows us how different kinds of people deal with it. Its not amazing but there is some of the earlier romero in there as well as certain bits like the final shot of the two dead patriarchs firing off empty guns at dawn to illustrate how pointless and futile the whole thing was. Its a far better ending shot than the film deserves and leaves you thinking its less of a shameless cash in like diary and more "romero had an idea and just went with it".

Like i said neither is amazing, but diary is really. really bad. worse than survival, worse than land. Go back and rewatch it. Its cringeworthy at points.

[MoonSylver]

Go back and rewatch it. Its cringeworthy at points.

Meh. I've seen them both plenty of times. Opinion still stands. Honestly, they're BOTH cringe worthy at times. I'll totally give you Diary's heavy handed social commentary. But Survival is so full of dumb gags and daft ideas it makes my brain hurt.

[Danny]

Meh. I've seen them both plenty of times. Opinion still stands. Honestly, they're BOTH cringe worthy at times. I'll totally give you Diary's heavy handed social commentary. But Survival is so full of dumb gags and daft ideas it makes my brain hurt.

For me nothing compares to dairies scene where they drop everything, point the camera at the main dude and start screaming some piss poor imitation of blair witches "NOBODYS GONNA SAVE YOU, WHATS YOUR MOTIVATION!" scene, but trying to make it into some "EASY TO WATCH THIS HAPPEN BEHIND A LENS GUY WE ALL VENOMOUSLY HATE FOR NO GOOD REASON!". Its just so up its ass about trying to convey an on the nose "our reliance on technology and social media detaches us from real events" message that i honestly cringe at that point.

[Buzzbomb]

I thought Diary was pretty good overall, and well worth watching - a damn sight better than most zombie fare.

Survival on the other hand just didn't gel... the idea of the 'cartoon' style-gags was something that just didn't work, and there were plenty of flaws.

[Ragnarr]

Hmm... which turd did I like better, which turd did I like better...

Well with the first turd, I think I ate too much protein the night before because of its darker color. The next day's turd reflected a bountiful dinner at Red Lobster, so it's really difficult to distinguish between the two turds. I wholeheartedly recommend flushing them both and never look back.

Gawd those two movies blew! :mad:

[MoonSylver]

For me nothing compares to dairies scene where they drop everything, point the camera at the main dude and start screaming some piss poor imitation of blair witches "NOBODYS GONNA SAVE YOU, WHATS YOUR MOTIVATION!" scene, but trying to make it into some "EASY TO WATCH THIS HAPPEN BEHIND A LENS GUY WE ALL VENOMOUSLY HATE FOR NO GOOD REASON!". Its just so up its ass about trying to convey an on the nose "our reliance on technology and social media detaches us from real events" message that i honestly cringe at that point.

Did I mention that I agreed on the social commentary point? :rolleyes: :lol: Sorry Danny boy, but even with all it's flaws, I still like it better that Survival, becuase Survival was just that muchbignotgood in my book. http://www.tale-ffxiv.com/boards/public/style_emoticons/default/shrug.gif

[JonOfTheShred]

I haven't seen either in at least a year, probably longer. I remember enjoying Diary, despite it being a rather hokey flick. I certainly remember enjoying it more than I did Survival. Survivals biggest downfall is that music soundtrack. The filmscore for Survival should have been a Spaghetti Western meets Horror Soundtrack vibe. That Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption? PERFECT representation of what should have been used in Survival. Instead, it sounds like a Danny Elfman score, which totally ruins the mood of the entire movie, turning into a light-hearted romp.

Both movies had potential, but had their short-fallings. I'm pretty forgiving with zombie movies, so while neither are my "favorite," I'd say they're both worth a watch every few years.

[Trin]

Both movies were sucktastic to the extreme. Preachy and/or stupid and/or poorly written. Zombies gags became more important than plot and plausibility.

But you have to watch them.

[Christopher Jon]

Survival was simply awful.

I honestly can't think of a single redeeming quality to Survival. How Shooteminthehead feels about WWZ, that's how I feel about Survival of the Dead.

Diary, I don't remember how bad it was since I've only seen it once and that was years ago.

Romero has a great track record of each movie being worse than the one before it.

[Shawn Wilcox]

"Romero has a great track record of each movie being worse than the one before it."

I don't know about that, the first 3 dead films are masterpieces in my honest opinion and even though its kinda a 50/50 split on here I think Land of the Dead is quite enjoyable. Like I said on my original initial post I think survival is god aweful and I haven't seen diary yet so I can't form an opinion one way or the other.

[Christopher Jon]

"Romero has a great track record of each movie being worse than the one before it."

I don't know about that, the first 3 dead films are masterpieces in my honest opinion and even though its kinda a 50/50 split on here I think Land of the Dead is quite enjoyable. Like I said on my original initial post I think survival is god aweful and I haven't seen diary yet so I can't form an opinion one way or the other.

Night of the Living Dead > Dawn of the Dead > Day of the Dead > Land of the Dead > Diary of the Dead > Survival of the Dead

Some may argue Dawn over Night, whatever, after that, it's a steady decline. Day is the weakest of the original trilogy. Land had its moments and having a studio sized budget didn't hurt but it's not even comparable to the Dawn of the Dead remake, which came out the same year.

I think I'm gonna rewatch Diary tonight.

[ProfessorChaos]

i saw diary in theaters and thought it was decent. a bit over-the-top with the message, but still a somewhat enjoyable flick, save for a few eye-rolling bits here and there.

survival was fucking painful to watch. i had to shut it off after the ghoul was behind the wheel of a car and the lesbian soldier cracked a joke about it never being able to pass its driver's exam. i had been suffering through it for the duration, almost literally from the first scene, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back. i honestly could not care less if i ever get the chance to finish it.

[rongravy]

Yeah, when I saw Diary in the theater, twice in one week actually, I didn't think it was all that bad. Not nearly as great as Land, but none too shabby.
Survival is pretty bad, glad I didn't see it in the theaters. I would've been pissed. I can understand any and all hate for it.
I do not like bad special effects, and those were cringe worthy and unforgivable. I love George, but somebody check those meds.

[Andy]

I would rather pluck out my own eyeballs with a spoon than watch any of romeros new trilogy again.

The man has destroyed all credibility he had with me.

[Neil]

I would rather pluck out my own eyeballs with a spoon than watch any of romeros new trilogy again.

The man has destroyed all credibility he had with me.

Half agree! Land is sort of OK'ish. But I've only watch his latest two offerings once, and have never felt the need to revisit them!

[Andy]

Half agree! Land is sort of OK'ish. But I've only watch his latest two offerings once, and have never felt the need to revisit them!

I am particularly tough on land i know, mainly because its the only romero movie i got to see in a cinema and i was expecting great things, and i got..... well i got land.

[Rottedfreak]

Diary at least had the right idea with the characters on the road and you'd think Road of the Dead would do somehting like that but NooooooOOOOOOOooooooo it has to be zombies driving cars.

[shootemindehead]

I'd happily watch 'Land of the Dead' again and despite a few WTF's, it fits as a chapter in the first series. However, Romero's attempted reboot is absolutely dreadful. I made a lot of excuses for 'Diary of the Dead' when it came out, hoping that the new series would eventually redeem itself, but with 'Survival of the Dead', all the bets were off really. From the moment it started, I knew that it was going to be like some SyFy special and when those "Oirish" accents puked themselves all over the screen, I nearly soiled myself.

For the life of me, I just cannot think what was going on in George's head. truly staggering.

I've always admired Romero's "I'll make the kind of film I want and feck the lot of ye" type of approach, even if a lot of his films are meh, to say the least. But, if he doesn't give a shite about the film himself, well, that's a whole different kettle of fish.

[MagicMoonMonkey]

If you watch the new trilogy in the order of Dairy, Survival & Land, then they do get progressively better than the last.

Survival could have been a treat if Romero had just gone tonto with the gore during the final act. I felt absolutely robbed watching this movie. Scenes ending with cattle hands hanging upside down with some zombies shambling towards the easy meal without so much as a bite are quite a removal from what we are used to seeing during the final act of a Romero movie. We had the bikers in Dawn; the soldiers in Day; everyone in Land. Survival was like getting a wank from the bird and her stopping before I blow my load. It was a complete WTF let-down.
I originally thought the movie had been cut and a special gore filled edition would be presented after its delayed US release. The final act promised so much and delivered very little. Poor show George.

[shootemindehead]

Why do people keep putting 'Land of the Dead' in with the other two reboot abortions? Doesn't make any sense. It's clearly part of the original series. In fact Romero had planned it to be part of his original series, long before he'd even thought of 'Diary of the Dead'.

[Wyldwraith]

Diary, bad as it is, takes it over Survival hands down. Reason? Diary actually has two scenes that have some lvl of tension if not horror. The scene where the girl returns home in search of her family, and the scene at the VERY end, where the girl and Ye Olde Drunkard English Archer are forced to retreat into the panic room and you see the shots on the various security cameras of zombies ALL over the mansion and its grounds. That had at least a mild dose of Romero's grim, zombies overcome through failings of human nature and due to them being an inexorable tide.

Survival? Nothing but cheap cartoonish, shoots-flare-in-zombie's-mouth, causing its head to light up like a jack-o`-lantern, and cheap action hero sequences. Ie: Swimming to the boat with zombies standing on the bottom.

Both movies are crap, but Diary escapes the total of TOTAL CRAP, because a couple of scenes actually remind you what Romero used to be about. It's a fleeting feeling, especially since both scenes come late in the film so there are NO good, or even decently watchable, scenes in Diary's first 60 minutes.

Now if you wanted a truly bleak, horrifying ending. Diary should've continued following the fate of the blonde chick from Texas who took off from the mansion in an RV with next to no gas. Wouldn't by any means have salvaged the film, but it would have improved the ending...which needed all the help it could get after Camera Guy was such a detached retard he let a walking corpse stagger right up to him and do as much damage as 4-5 zombies usually do to solo victims, and the girl was crying over him and promising to finish his movie. While planning to retreat into a panic room that was going to either become a tomb when the diesel in the generator conked out, or a buffet-server by an emergency mechanism opening the door and feeding them to the waiting zombies once its small emergency battery was depleted.

That's one of the things George has forgotten. Futility simply being inferred in the doom of characters, as opposed to being filmed has far less "punch" when the majority of a zombie movie has been negligently light on meaningful/frightening zombie activity. I mean c'mon, how much of the damned movie is just the emotionally STERILE interior of the RV?

Anyways, Diary better than Survival, in that I can at least bring myself to rip on Diary while acknowledging its 2 faint glimmers of promise, whereas Survival is so awful I wouldn't even know where to begin cataloging its failures.

[Christopher Jon]

Why do people keep putting 'Land of the Dead' in with the other two reboot abortions? Doesn't make any sense. It's clearly part of the original series. In fact Romero had planned it to be part of his original series, long before he'd even thought of 'Diary of the Dead'.

Agreed.

I'm sure somebody has worked out a timeline but I always felt that Land and Day were happening at about the same time. Day was what was happening down in Florida while Land was what was happening up in Pittsburgh.

Diary was a bad attempt at a reboot of the franchise.

btw, I tried rewatching Diary and I didn't make it more than 20 minutes before I lost interest.

[ProfessorChaos]

survival (along with day and night) was on the chiller channel this weekend. since i had tons of dvr space, i recorded it and may give it a 2nd chance soon....not expecting a major change of opinion, but maybe this time i'll actually sit through the whole thing.

[Shawn Wilcox]

survival (along with day and night) was on the chiller channel this weekend. since i had tons of dvr space, i recorded it and may give it a 2nd chance soon....not expecting a major change of opinion, but maybe this time i'll actually sit through the whole thing.

I actually did sit through the whole thing and it was an hour and half of my life I won't get back! LOL

[Mr.G]

As I mentioned in another thread....Diary and Survival are so bad they make Land look like Citizen Kane. All in all, and it pains me to type this due to the respect I have for GAR, but I'd prefer if the new trilogy would cease to exist. Can you imagine if someone's first zombie movie was Land, Diary or Survival? That's chilling!

[BillyRay]

Diary always struck me as Unca George cashing in on the whole 'Blair Witch shaky-cam' fad. For all of it's faults, Survival at least attempts to be an original narrative. Also...MULDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNN!!!!

- - - Updated - - -

Diary always struck me as Unca George cashing in on the whole 'Blair Witch shaky-cam' fad. For all of it's faults, Survival at least attempts to be an original narrative. Also...MULDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNN!!!!

[Andrew Crevier]

I sooo have to watch Diary now. I've been avoiding it since the last time I attempted and got only 5 minutes in. Drunk and being tired may have had something to do with that. I know I'll probably hate it, but back when folks were saying, "hey GAR is making a found footage dead flick," hopes were high.

[Shawn Wilcox]

Ok I finally got around to watching diary tonight and yes it is a hell of a lot better than survival, not original trilogy better but between those 2 films diary wins hands down!

[Ragnarr]

I just cannot use the word "win" when describing either flick. The question should be which movie is (was) the bigger loser of the two lol.

[zomtom]

For whatever reason, I don't really have a problem with Diary. I can watch it at least once a year. Sure I want to smack a couple of the characters for being such idiots but to me, it's still watchable. Mind you, it's no where near the original trilogy. Survival however, was just downright painful to watch. It was so damned hokey, I was wondering if George wanted it to be a comedy. Maybe I'll be able to watch it again in another three or four years after I forget how much I hated it.

[krisvds]

I like both Diary and Survival as 'interesting failures'. Both have good ideas, have an intelligent core.
Anyone who has ever been to a concert lately and has witnessed the idiots standing there with their smartphones over their head filming the whole goddamn time can surely relate to what George was going for in Diary.

Both films have painfully flawed execution as well. That voiceover in Diary gets on my nerves every time. The attempts at comedy in survival are painful.

[Geordie9]

I dont think any of romeros zombie films have been that good after day of the dead. I didnt like the main characters in land, diary or survival whereas in night, dawn and day i loved them. i still bought them all though to add to the collection and watch them regularly. But i think diary was better then survival.

[MoonSylver]

Interesting observation. I did like the characters in Land for the most part (except for Riley's stupid "looking for a place to live" turn at the end), but thinking about it, Diary & Survival both are full of pretty unlikable characters in general, except maybe the drunken professor of Diary, who was still too overblown & too much of a caricature, which undermines the good will I have for him. :(

[Trin]

Interesting observation. I did like the characters in Land for the most part (except for Riley's stupid "looking for a place to live" turn at the end), but thinking about it, Diary & Survival both are full of pretty unlikable characters in general, except maybe the drunken professor of Diary, who was still too overblown & too much of a caricature, which undermines the good will I have for him. :(

Charlie in Land is one of my favorite Romero characters of all time. And I really enjoyed Riley (yes, except for the lame "looking for a place" bs). And I thought Cholo was a good character - not a hero, not a villain. They all suffered from lame plot.

And I thought O'Flynn was a good character in Survival. He had a take-charge, no-nonsense attitude toward the zombies. He was more than willing to put a bullet in the head of the zombies chained to their tasks along the roadside. And he was totally competent of surviving in the zombie world. Yet he had a human side which is atypical for such a character. For example, when faced with the zombie children in the crib he couldn't pull the trigger. Survival was a truly awful movie... and it was hard to find any goodness at all in it... but it wasn't because of bad characters. well.... not ALL because of bad characters... Muldooooooooooon!!

[Geordie9]

And I thought O'Flynn was a good character in Survival. He had a take-charge, no-nonsense attitude toward the zombies. He was more than willing to put a bullet in the head of the zombies chained to their tasks along the roadside. And he was totally competent of surviving in the zombie world. Yet he had a human side which is atypical for such a character. For example, when faced with the zombie children in the crib he couldn't pull the trigger. Survival was a truly awful movie... and it was hard to find any goodness at all in it... but it wasn't because of bad characters. well.... not ALL because of bad characters... Muldooooooooooon!![/QUOTE]

And George Romero said that he hopes that in 20 years time people will think of Survival in the same way as they do with Day! Dont think so George!

[Legion2213]

I've still never watched "Survival", "Diary" fucking killed it for me (Diary made "Land" look like an epic...).

GAR is going to have to pull something pretty damn special out of the hat before I watch another of his zombie movies (I feel really bad saying that when Dawn is one of my all time favourite movies).

Oh, and to be balanced, I understand that producing another "Dawn" is probably impossible and asking too much (like the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the magic was lost), but his newer stuff isn't even decent or viewable IMO.