CONTENT WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL TALK ABOUT SOME SCENES WHICH SOME READERS WILL FIND DISTRESSING.
Four years ago filmmaker George A. Romero died from lung cancer at the age of 77. He leaves behind a great legacy of films that influenced an entire generation of not just filmmakers, but numerous other people who work in horror fiction. The last film he directed was 2010's Survival of the Dead, but his last film to be released is his long thought lost film The Amusement Park from 1973 which will be released on the Shudder streaming service this year. So before I watch Romero's last film, I thought I'd check out his last film, Survival of the Dead.
George A. Romero will be known mostly for his zombie movies, notably the influential Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead, but he did branch out into other different types of films like the anthology film Creepshow he made with Stephen King, Knightriders, the modern day knight movie with Ed Harris, Monkey Shines, the killer monkey movie and the vampire film Martin, but his last couple of films in the 2000's were zombie movies. Land of the Dead, the one with the biggest budget, Diary of the Dead, the found footage film and Survival of the Dead which is subject of this review.
Survival of the Dead was savaged by critics on it's initial release in 2010*, and judging it now 11 years l can see why they were like that, with the low budget hindering certain aspects, like having to rely on CGI blood squirts and effects, underwritten female parts, less zombies, some odd acting choices, some characters acting a bit silly and a lack of social commentary that the previous films had, but I still enjoyed the film myself for a litany of other reasons.
Set a few weeks after the initial zombie apocalypse, if you're wondering how the timeline works don't bother it's on comic book time, Survival of the Dead follows a group of National Guardsmen who went AWOL led by Sarge "Nicotine" Crockett (Alan van Sprang) who after picking a young man named Boy (Devon Bostick), yes that really is his name, travel to an island off the coast of Delaware that might be a save haven. But it turns out the inhabitants of the island are having a Hatfields and McCoys style feud over what to do with the zombie inhabitants. One side, the O'Flynn family want to kill all the zombies to keep their island safe, while the other side, the Muldoon family want to keep their zombified family members to see if they can eat anything that isn't human. As you can expect things go wrong and both sides are wiped out and the group of soldiers sail off into the sunset.
One of major things I enjoyed about this film was the setting of Plum Island. The countryside setting of the film mixed with the zombie element gives the film a gothic pastoral look. The film also does not spare itself from it's fair share of horrific images, like the zombies being kept by the Muldoons being chained up and forced to do what they previously done before or at the beginning with the zombie children. That is some dark stuff.
The feud between the O'Flynns and the Muldoons is also another area of the film excels at. A reoccurring theme throughout Romero's zombie films is the breakdown of society and Survival carries that theme. We get the idea that these two families have been feuding for generations but the reasons why have long been forgotten and if they put there differences aside there would be a lot less bloodshed. It's a theme that been used in Romero's other zombie films, especially in Night of the Living Dead as that also shows how distrust and miscommunication does not solve anything.
While on the topic of the O'Flynn family I would like to give a shout-out to Kenneth Welsh, as the O'Flynn patriarch Patrick. You might know him as Windom Earle, the main villain from Twin Peaks' second season or his various supporting roles. He was also in Star Trek: Discovery recently which starred Alan van Sprang, Sarge's actor. He is great in this film with a performance that shows he is having fun, but also showing that he do the serious stuff when the time comes. I do consider him the main character of the film, one of the problems with this film is that there is no clear protagonist, but I would consider Patrick O'Flynn the main protagonist.
The characters are also interesting. I've already written about the island characters so let's focus on the National Guardsmen. Now these characters, namely Sarge, were first introduced in Diary of the Dead, the film made before Survival, as the group of people sticking up the main characters of that film. This would make them one of the few characters who appear in more than one Living Dead film. The first was Tom Savini making a cameo as Blades from Dawn of the Dead in Land of the Dead. This is interesting because the other films are disconnect from each other and Survival and Diary are in their own separate universe from those films, but it's good to see a bit of connection between films. These characters are broad archetypes that you've seen before: Sarge is the tough as nails leader who has a heart of gold, Kenny is the comedic relief, Boy is the new recruit who forges a somewhat paternal relationship with Sarge, Tomboy is the tough as nails women service member and Cisco, Tomboy's foil. Broad archetypes but they have all been given memorable performances by a cast that all seemed up for it. Also the group of military trained people going into a secluded, zombie infested area seemed very similar to Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead. It may be coincidental, but I was thinking about these comparisons as well.
Now onto wait a lot of people would come to see a Romero zombie film for. Zombies and there is not a lot of them, but when they do show up it's pretty fun. I've already written about the pastoral themed look of the film, but the film does have two great set pieces. One is set on some docks where the Guardsmen have to get onto the ferry but the ferry is far away, but someone has to swim across zombie infested waters to get there while also being shot at. It's a well directed scene with some good action bits, a zombie gets killed by a fire extinguisher and another is handed dynamite. It's a pretty fun scene. The second set piece happens towards the end where all hell breaks loose, all the bad guys are killed in a variety of ways which was fun to watch, especially as they show all the practical gore effects.
Overall Survival of the Dead isn't as good or iconic as what came before it but it is still a lot of fun regardless and while it may of been Romero's last zombie film it wasn't intended to be as he intended to produce and write a zombie film called Road of the Dead which was intended to be like a zombie Fast and the Furious movie but that never got anywhere but a prequel comic published by IDW, but recently his wife and the George A. Romero foundation are working on getting Triumph of the Dead, what he intended to be his coda on the zombie genre he started filmed with discussions on finding a director. So while Romero may be no longer with us, his influence does live on.
*It premiered on the festival circuit in 2009, I always go by when a film is released to the general public via limited or general release.
