Let us be clear from the start. George A. Romero can rightfully lay claim to the status of ‘legendary’. His peerless, stunning, horror-classic triple whammy of Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead and Day Of The Dead have him rightfully revered across the globe. Those films are every bit as good as their reputation would have you believe and he should rake in the plaudits for the rest of his natural life and beyond. Something, however, is rotten in Denmark. Land Of The Dead was a towering disappointment. Diary Of The Dead was one of the most turgid pieces of crapulence I’ve ever had the misfortune to suffer through, and now here we have Survival Of The Dead, which I am sorry to say continues Mr Romero on his downward trajectory.
A gang of faux military survivors find themselves headed toward an island in order to take refuge from the zombie hordes. The island is essentially controlled by two feuding family men and the survivors find themselves caught up in the middle of it all.
At times Survival Of The Dead dared to suggest it might end up being halfway decent. Unfortunately it got quickly bogged down in a mess of appalling stereotypes, shit C.G.I., lame 'big noise scares' (come on George you're better than that), and a totally dumbfuck plot. The lowest ebb occurs when you think a main character has been killed, only to discover that they have, I shit you not, an identical twin!!!!
On the plus side it wasn't as bad as Diary of the Dead, but then neither are 99.9% of all the films ever made in the history of the Universe.
I really don’t know what to make of Mr George A. Romero these days. I had compared his recent career to George Lucas, and his own one man mission to destroy every bit of goodwill that people still harbour for him. But at least George Romero isn’t going back and tinkering with his own movies, or kicking a fond childhood memory square in the ballbag. So comparisons to the devil George Lucas are still a ways off. George Romero is still at least TRYING to recapture what made him great in the first place. And I appreciate that, I really do. At the risk of mixing my metaphors, if George Lucas is the Emperor, then George A. Romero is Darth Vader – I sense there is still good left in him.
Nevertheless Romero does seem to be following the ‘John Carpenter 2 Point Career Progression Plan’:
1) Make stunning, genre defining films of complete unparalleled awesomeness.
2) Suddenly and without warning, go completely shit.
It may be best for all concerned if Mr George A. Romero were to drift gracefully into retirement. He doesn’t have to get a ‘real job’. No one wants that. But based on his early works, here is a man who should never have to buy another drink or steak dinner for the rest of his life. Combine that with a couple of conventions a year and he’d be all set.
It must be noted that Survival Of The Dead is at least watchable, which is more than can be said for Diary Of The Dead, but when you compare it to Romero’s back catalogue it’s just not cutting the mustard.
IMDB: Survival Of The Dead
