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Director: George A.
Romero
Screenplay: George A.
Romero
Cast: Alan van Sprang
(as Sarge "Nicotine" Crockett); Kenneth Welsh (as Patrick O'Flynn); Kathleen
Munroe (as Janet O'Flynn); Richard Fitzpatrick (as Seamus Muldoon); Athena
Karkanis (as Tomboy)
A Night of a Thousand
Horror (Movies) #9
Note - While I'll not spoil the whole film, a major plot twist is
talked of. Read with discretion of this.
In lieu of witnessing Dario Argento's Mother of Tears (2007), the equivalent at looking at a roadside
accident with morbid curiosity, the question of the later careers of directors famous
for horror films and the quality of the work springs to mind. For myself, the
issue has always been how director who made their reputations in the seventies
- John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper etc. - suffered from the
transition of cinema into the Millennium. An entirely different attitude to
horror films in particular exists that, for every good one still made, is
frankly questionable, not looking to its forefathers barring remaking the older
films and not providing the necessary resources and creative control for
anything interesting. George A. Romero was
stuck in a situation where he could only make zombie films within the last
decade but it's also a question of whether the films are any good despite the hindrances
in the industry that makes them. Reassessing the Living Dead series he started with Night of the Living Dead (1968) is for another day, but with the
attempt at found footage with Diary of
the Dead (2007), whether it's still as bad as I thought it was or needs to
be revaluated, clearly scuppered him in the public's opinion, hindering his
career greatly and leaving Survival of
the Dead as his last film currently over seven years.
Survival... is both an attempt to recoup from Diary of the Dead, bringing back a character from it called Sarge
"Nicotine" Crockett (Sprang),
his small band of soldiers trying to survive an increasingly undead American
soil. At the same time, Survival of the
Dead is Romero's attempt at a
western, following a war between two families on a small island the soldiers
eventually reach - the exiled Patrick O'Flynn (Welsh) who believed putting the dead out of their misery is the
best thing to do, and Seamus Muldoon (Fitzpatrick),
who believes the zombies can be taught to eat non-human flesh and will prove
his belief the undead can be civilised even if his moral compass vanishes as
the film continues. The result, befitting Romero's
earlier films, is incredibly interesting and memorable. As these two families
are morally grey and exist in a never ending and absurd feud between the
central patriarchal figures, the meat of the film (pun intended) is so much
more memorable than a lot of zombie films. This point is so blatantly obvious
its silly to bring it up compared to all the bad ones.
It's not a completely perfect
film but significantly better than its reputation suggests. There's a jokiness
here that, even if it was prevalent all the way in Dawn of the Dead (1978) with the pie throwing is likely too silly
here. The soldiers are a likable group but they're tagged along with by a
sarcastic Millennial (Devon Bostick)
who is as good as them and brags about it, a character who brings to mind the
concerns people had with Diary of the
Dead with annoying youth adults being in the centre of the plot. Also there's
a case to be made that, while its awesome for someone to light a zombie's head
on fire with a flare gun and then light their cigar with the flame, it feels
too absurd even in light of the Living
Dead series' tone, too close to the
notion of being a "badass" in the tone of an action film that's
plagued too many horror films within the last few decades. Others might find
the Irish accents the warring families
have incredibly broad too, liable to raise unintentional titters. The only
major concern in terms of the actual plot is a cheat when one of the plot
twists is that O'Flynn's daughter Janet (Munroe)
actually has a twin sister, not a bad plot idea as it leads to a whole issue of
whether the zombies can understand and engage with their environment, but
considering the fact that the Janet is
never shown with a sister beforehand causes the twist to come off as cheating
in another unintentionally silly way.
But I like the film immensely. The
western vibe, of cowboys and the family rivalries, is mild but adds a lot of
character to the film. Also far from looking like Romero has plummeted into quality, the film looks good and there's
a wit to the material through either likable or complicated characters which
stands out. It's surprising actually how many view this as the nadir of Romero's career as, in light of many a
overrated horror film over the years, this one at least has something of
interest to it despite the flaws.
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