Survival of the Dead (George A. Romero, 2009)

[PrayforMojo]

George's last two zombie films don't compare all that favourably to the original trilogy, but this looks like it might be fun. Maybe even a return to form. It appears that George is paying homage to the Western genre as it follows Crocket, a minor character from Diary of the Dead, and his squad of renegade soldiers to Plum Island, which they find is split between two camps - those who think it's wrong to kill zombies and those who think the only good zombie is a dead zombie.

Trailer -



Making of -

[Spatial]

It took me way longer than it should have to realise that was Windom Earle in there.

[cutmymilk]

Hmm, that kind of rips off a story in The Walking Dead comics. Looks a bit under produced at the moment but I'm sure it will be cleaned up.

As an aside, The Walking Dead is being made into a TV series. Has the potential to be the best series ever if they follow the comics lead.

[dvdmike]

They changed the name ! no wonder it dropped off the grid

[Dogg Thang]

I was embarrassed watching Diary of the Dead. I was embarrassed for me, Romero and everyone in that sub-C&C cut-scene standard movie. If I had been told it was made a student and his mates, I might tell him to keep at it but Romero? Yikes.

This already looks better than that but the fact that it's tied into Diary doesn't fill me with much hope. Of course, I'll see it and on some level I will be hoping it is great. I think I'll always give Romero the benefit of the doubt each time. He made Night, Dawn and Day so I guess I should.

Edit: Image gallery here - http://www.fearnet.com/news/photos/b..._survival.html

Oh, and anyone into zombies should check out the trailer for Zombieland.

[dvdmike]

Its had some good ideas the the swimming pool was worth the price of the BRD for me

[Kit]

Romero needs to retire, this looks shockingly bad.

[Neon Ignition]

Ha ha! If it weren't for the text I swear you could pass that off as a Mad Dog Mcree sequel! Romero should never have brought the series back, let alone use it as an attempt to bludgeon his own legacy. A shame.

[Spatial]

I think the concept is sound

In a world where the dead rise to menace the living, rogue soldier Crocket (Alan Van Sprang) leads a band of military dropouts to refuge from the endless chaos. As they search for a place ?where the **** won't get you,? they meet banished patriarch Patrick O? Flynn (played with zeal by Kenneth Welsh), who promises a new Eden on the fishing and ranching outpost Plum Island. The men arrive, only to find themselves caught in an age-old battle between O? Flynn ? s family and rival clan the Muldoons. It turns out that Patrick was expelled from the isle for believing that the only good zombie is a dead zombie, while the Muldoons think it ? s wrong to dispatch afflicted loved ones, attempting to look after their undead kinfolk until a cure is found. But their bid for stability on the homestead has turned perverse: the undead are chained inside their homes, pretending to live normal lives ? and the consequences are bloody. A desperate struggle for survival will determine whether the living and the dead can coexist.

but Romero's past his sell by date if his last two outings are anything to go by and the trailer for this doesn't fill me with confidence that he's got his necrotic mojo back.

Still, Dawn and Day though aye? Marvellous films.

[PrayforMojo]

Link to a new promo trailer, which appears to reveal some big plot spoilers and also contains some very graphic imagery -

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer...-promo-trailer

I found some of the CGI gore FX particularly offensive. Not on the grounds of taste, mind. They just look BAD! Hopefully, they're just unfinished FX shots and will be tidied up by the time the film gets a cinema release.

[Dogg Thang]

That looks pretty poor. What the hell kind of accent is Windem Earle doing?

[PrayforMojo]

Lol, I'm no expert linguist, but I assume it's meant to be Irish. I am liking the character he plays, though, judging from the brief clips I've seen, and I think he's meant to be the villain of the piece.

Reviews coming out so far have been pretty mixed, but I think it's looks like good fun. The humour seems a bit OTT, and I would've preferred it if Romero just stuck to practical FX, but I'm intrigued by the dilemma of keeping zombiefied family members and loved ones alive, and the conflict it causes. There's still some meat to be plucked off them old zombie bones, even if Romero's best days are probably behind him.

[Dogg Thang]

Bought this on blu-ray today. Just watched it.

Loved it.

Everything I thought was utterly pants about the trailers is still utterly pants. And yet the trailers, in a bizarre 'missed the point of a trailer' kind of way, contained just about every crappy moment of this movie.

Most of the stuff around those moments came together to make a really enjoyable film. There's something rather classic about it. Aside from the laptop, internet and an iPod Touch, it's pretty timeless and sits with Dawn in terms of feel even though the locations are so different.

A real pleasant surprise. Romero has redeemed himself in my eyes.

[Spatial]

Interesting, I'd totally given up on this after that trailer. Might see if I can pick it up on DVD on the cheap.

[JazzFunk]

Yes, as a *massive* zombie movie fan (especially of the original Dawn... and Day...) I will have to check this out. I still have to check out Diary..., as all I've heard of it was ****e incarnate, but Land... , it wasn't too bad, it was just way below Day... and even below Shaun... (I thought Shaun Of The Dead shat all over Land Of The Dead , both in fear factor terms and skill of execution, and it was only scary briefly!)

At work the other day, I was just thinking of a lazy, fat, old George Romero just pumping out crappy 'sequels' to his original classic trilogy, like some senile pig thrashing about in its own ****, some obese, apathetic, lazy, artless hack of a sell-out, soiling his own legacy, but then I remembered that even a bad Romero film contains elements that distinguish it from the cackyshatty hack efforts of lesser directors (Steve Miner's grotesquely terrible Day... 'remake' and the Day... rip-off non-Romero sequels (Contagium!!!!!) spring to mind.)

Even Romero's ****, it'd be kind of edible, I'll hold out some hope this film'll be on a Land... level of decency, and I will get round to watching Diary... , now I've got my CRT (with its audible sound!) set up.