“You’re lucky I’m me.”
After Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, where would you have gone? Hell, I would’ve taken some time off, myself, done some other stuff. George Romero seemed to be on the same wavelength, until 2005’s Land of the Dead split his fan base in two - the Romero’s Lost Its and the I’m Behind Ya’s. After that, the 2007 digicam follow-up, Diary of the Dead, further divided the gap.
George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead has made its US debut courtesy of Magnet Releasing. It’s currently available on Amazon Video On Demand and Xbox Live Marketplace, and will have a limited theatrical release on May 30th, 2010. Following characters briefly introduced in Diary, Survival far more closely resembles Night of the Living Dead, in its grounded and documentary-like action. It’s a cold film, and an angry film, but whereas Diary’s “Shot By Pretentious Student Filmmakers” approach allowed Romero to direct his frustrations right at his viewers, Survival of the Dead takes place more in one’s own perception of the events. Certainly, this isn’t to say Survival is perfect, but as a final coda in a series spanning well over four decades, it succeeds far better than Land’s uplifting closure point or Diary’s rage-injected cry for help. Survival of the Dead’s closing lamentations are truly the stuff of nightmares.
Survival of the Dead takes the action to an island off the coast of Delaware, where just days after the initial outbreak, civil unrest has torn an already fragile society apart. Like Night, Dawn, Day, Land, and Diary before it, Survival of the Dead is about sides – where we stand, and where you stand. While all of his films in this series tackle the subject in their own way, Romero has found the fabled golden ticket in this sea-locked villa. Gone is the overruling haves-and-the-have-nots subtext of Land of the Dead and the youthful cynicism and bickering of Diary. Survival of the Dead has an almost uniformly fully-matured cast of characters, many of them in their late sixties or older. It’s a film about men, not boys.
The performances are mostly good, if not spectacular. But therein lies one of the film’s most developed strengths. Despite a handful of familiar character actors popping up, Romero has chosen a cast of relative unknowns, and hasn’t tampered with his vision by putting his more familiar faces in zombie makeup. Survival has a workman-like quality to it; an identifiable absence of overdevelopment. In design, this would have been tricky, especially with the venomous backlash that Diary received. But in practice, this is Romero’s strongest effort since Day of the Dead, his minimalist mindset working in his favor once again. Despite some unfortunate CGI effects and a weak performance from its lead actress, Survival of the Dead is able to burrow into that spot in your head where horror just doesn’t anymore. It’s when you’re scared for a very real reason, even if you’re unable to identify it. And to Romero’s credit, the narration works exceptionally well, given it’s the film’s sole unnatural narrative element (zombies notwithstanding).
Horror has devolved into a paint-by-numbers canvas of coming up with an inescapable scenario, but it comes off as toothless when your audience isn’t filled with a palpable sense of dread from the onset. From the beginning, Survival pushes the viewer away, in a thoughtful and effective manner. Its vision is compromised on occasion, arguably like all of Romero’s Dead films, but its core moral is conveyed strongly enough not to let go once it’s over. In fact, given a short while of reflection, it becomes a much stronger film. Should Romero be able to produce flawless material at this stage in his life? Perhaps. But whereas you might have forgotten about Land or Diary sometime after seeing them, Survival’s barrenness is destined to bring back the shivers, just when you think you’ve forgotten them.
"Survival of the Dead" opens April 30, 2010 and is rated R. Horror. Directed by George A Romero. Written by George A. Romero. Starring Alan Van Sprang, Athena Karkanis, Devon Bostick, Kathleen Munroe, Kenneth Welsh, Richard Fitzpatrick.
