AMAZON: CLICK
HERE
STUDIO: Magnolia
MSRP: $29.98
RATED: R
RUNNING
TIME: 90 Minutes
SPECIAL
FEATURES:
- Commentary
- Introduction by George Romero
- Documentary: Walking After Midnight
- Short Film: Sarge
- 13 Behind the Scenes Shorts
- Storyboard Comparison
- How to Create Your Own Zombie Bite
- HD Net: A look at Survival of the Dead
The Pitch
The master of the zombie genre returns to his domain.
The Humans
Director: George A. Romero
Writer: George A. Romero
Cinematographer: Adam Swica
Cast: Alan Van Sprang. Kenneth Welsh. Kathleen Munroe. Devon Bostick. Athena Karkanis. Joris Jarsky.
Jodorowsky’s Back to the Future was a little different.
The
Nutshell
A group of mercenaries go rogue and respond to an internet ad about a safe island in Delaware and fall right into the middle of a Hatfield-McCoy-esque feud. You know, but with zombies. I’m serious. That’s the plot.
The
Lowdown
There was a time when George Romero and
zombies was a sure bet. Even when he was a little off his game he was
still the master. Day of the Dead is a great gore flick
with some fun characters but it’s burdened by an excessively mean
spirited and profane script and it lacks a lot of the insight and
forethought that made its predecessors so special. Land of the
Dead tries to be something special and has a lot of charms
but once again isn’t developed enough to have the maximum appeal.
Diary of the Dead is an interesting exercise but from
Dawn forward, though they each tried to come up with something
new, each film has represented a drop in overall quality but nothing to cause a huge fan like myself to take pause about the man’s work.
Sadly, Survival of the Dead
drops the bar dangerously low. So low that I’m not sure I want to see another George A. Romero zombie movie ever again.
Romero wanted to invest a more satirical and playful vibe to this installment in his saga, infusing Western motifs and the aforementioned clan feud (apparently inspired to some extent by William Wyler’s The Big Country) and in the hands of a more capable cast he may have pulled it off. But the budget restrictions come at a high cost. In Land of the Dead he had Dennis Hopper, Simon Baker, Robert Joy, and John Leguizamo and though none of those actors delivered their finest work they made it entertaining. Here, though some of the actors (Welsh especially, though he just comes off as a 2nd tier Malcolm McDowell) try to add zest to the script there’s nothing here that comes close to making the time away from zombie attacks interesting.
“I want the wishbone!”
In truth the time devoted to the human characters is sometimes excruciating. Romero is very attached to leading actor Alan Van Sprang [this is his 3rd ‘Dead’ film], and though he looks the part and delivers his lines there’s nothing about him that makes him interesting. Following this man and his associates is difficult to endure, especially when their dialogue is oftentimes extremely stale and generic or when they have just enough facets to qualify as characters. The lesbian soldier who the suave Latino soldier keeps trying to ‘turn’, the goofy sidekick character, and the lunkheads populating both sides of the clan feud all do very little to make it a worthwhile couple of hours.
Here’s how bad the characters are. The most interesting and well-shaded characters in the film are a pair of twin sisters. AND ONE IS A ZOMBIE. That’s how bad. Though the goal assuredly was to make the audience invest themselves in these two warring factions, it’s a ludicrous thing whether satirical or not. It simply rings hollow.
So, luckily there’s zombies. Right?
Wrong.
“My mom went around the corner holding Dick Van Patton and my dad came around the corner holding David Morse and they collided and here I am.”
Considering that George A. Romero has brought us the Helicopter Zombie, Bub, the Hare Krishna Zombie, and countless other memorable zombies and kills, one could expect a whole plethora of interesting zombies and great kills in this latest jaunt. Sadly, the zombies are at an all-time worst here. Not only are they not interesting or even all that well realized from a special effects standpoint, they don’t have any real sense of a threat to them. In fact, though the idea of rehabilitating the zombies [which is developing theme in the series since Day of the Dead) is interesting, the zombies truly seem like an afterthought here.
And then there’s the choreography. Though Romero has proven to be a genius as executing a gag, he’s never been known for creating blocking and choreography that mine all the possibilities of a sequence. In the past the editing, FX, performances, and other minutia have assisted him. Here, deprived of all of those tools it feels like amateur hour.
“I know it was you, Lobot…”
To save on costs Pittsburgh’s finest son has embraced the digital world fully. There’s not one real muzzle flare or bullet hit, which is fine if handled right. The result here are a lot of really uninspired kills and the abandonment of the terrific and painful gore of the classics in the series. And it seems he loves the unlimited freedom of CGI in his zombie movies.
Unlimited freedom. And this is what you get, folks:
A dud of a film no matter who directed it.
The
Package
I’m not sure they needed two discs for this one. The first disc is the film itself available with or without a cute Romero introduction and a few shorter special features and there’s a commentary track from the man himself and some select crew.
I love George A. Romero and love to hear him talk because his passion hasn’t wanted in forty plus years of making movies but it stings a little when the output is what it is. He’s incredibly nice, finds fun in his job, and seems to genuinely respect the folks around him who don’t get the recognition for it. But the film still stinks, which lessens the overall impact.
The second disc is loaded with a lot of little features as well, but very little of it is grounds for buying the DVD for the feature set. A man named Michael Felsher is prominent on these features, and his passion for Romero is obvious (he also contributes a short “extended universe” film tied to the film) but once again all of these features are weakened by the film they’re associated with. Even the long documentary about the making of the film made my eyes glaze over after a while. I probably should have watched it first.
4.0
out of 10