Post by tav7623 on Oct 20, 2010 12:25:14 GMT -5
“I’m too old, you’re too young, and she’s got issues, kid”- Sgt. Crockett
This quote spoken by Sgt. Crockett best exemplifies in a few simple words the sentiment echoed by fans of the earlier movies in writer/director George A. Romero’s of the Dead series coming into the sixth movie in the series Survival of the Dead after the disaster that was Diary of the Dead. Which had left fans wondering if Romero had lost his ingenious horror movie magic mojo and that maybe he should stop while his semi decent horror reputation was still intact. This movie was released in a limited theatrical run on March 30th, 2010 grossing only $155,000 despite a budget of $4,000,000 and was released on DVD/Blu-Ray on August 24th, 2010. Survival of the Dead is a direct sequel to the 2007 movie found footage esque Diary of the Dead and follows Diary’s asshole National Guardsmen Kenny (Eric Woolfe), Francisco (Stefano Colacitti), Tomboy (Athena Karkanis), and their leader Sgt. Crockett (Alan van Sprang who is reprising his role from Diary) as they try to find a safe place to stay during the zombie apocalypse. The movie picks up shortly after Crockett and gang’s encounter with the students from Diary of the Dead as they rove around the country side looking for supplies. They soon come across a group of asshole rednecks who have stolen an armored bank vehicle and are camping out in the woods. After they take care of all the rednecks except for one of them who is a teenage kid and is referred to throughout the movie only as Boy (Devon Bostick). With the help of Boy’s internet phone they watch a video of Patrick O’Flynn (Kenneth Welsh) who in the video talks about an island off the Delaware coast called Plum Island that is safe and free of zombies. Unbeknownst to them O’ Flynn is lying about Plum Island being safe. It is far from safe, it is ground zero for a civil war between the O’Flynn family and the Muldoon family. Both families call the island home and are feuding over whether or not to kill their resurrected undead kin or to keep them “alive” until a “cure”. The O’Flynn’s led by Patrick O’Flynn fall on the side of killing the zombies and believes there won’t ever be a “cure” while the Muldoons, led by Seamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick) believe that even though they are zombies, they are still family and can be cured or at least domesticated. The feud boils over and Patrick O’Flynn is kicked off the island, but it doesn’t take him long to set up a scheme to lure people to the island to carry out/carry on the feud for him. Which is where our “heroes” come into the picture, they arrive at O’Flynn’s marina where they are ambushed by O’Flynn and some of his men. They manage to kill all of them except for O’Flynn himself, take him “hostage”, take control of a ferry, and make their way towards Plum Island.
Pros: Survival of the Dead like the previous entries in the Dead series is chock full of bloody and gory special effects, and carries on with a tradition of breaking new ground for the series. This movie is the first movie in the series that is directly connected to the previous movie in the series, marks the second time in which a character from a previous entry has shown up in a sequel (the first to pop up in two movies in the series as a human character), and carries on with a motif that was previously touched upon in Day of the Dead as well as taking it further with the horseback riding zombie.
Cons: Survival of the Dead like the past two entries uses cgi effects though unlike those earlier entries the cgi in this movie is markedly worse than those movies. In one scene early on Romero breaks one of his own rules (bullet to the head/ decapitation kills the zombie) in order to get a cheap shock moment involving five moving zombie heads on long wooden spikes, the Plum Island resident’s semi bad Scottish accents become grating about 2/3rds of the way through the movie, and the plot of the movie is convoluted not only with the whole feuding families plotline, but also with the twin sister subplot.
I give Survival of the Dead a 4.5 out of 10 for it decent bloody and gory practical special effects and for at least attempting to try something new in regards with what has come before in the series previous entry. Sadly this movie fails to live up to its full potential just like the previous film in the series and in my opinion marks a low point for the series. I would highly recommend this movie as a rental only, unless you are a really diehard fan of the series and already own all the previous movies in the series including the three remakes (the okay 1992 Tom Savini directed Night of the Living Dead remake, the excellent 2004 Zack Snyder directed Dawn of the Dead remake, and the shitty 2008 Steve Miner directed Day of the Dead remake) in which case I suggest you go for the Blu-ray version since it has a lot more bonus features than the DVD version including two audio commentaries, a feature length making of documentary, a couple of short films, and a make it yourself zombie bite tutorial.
I hope you enjoyed my review, please come back tomorrow for my review of the 2007 Frank Darabount directed adaptation of author Stephen King's The Mist.