Review“We gotta get these things to learn to eat somethin' other than us!” - Seamus MuldoonSurprisingly the plot of Survival is about as logically as a Liberal party broadband policy. Six days after the zombie outbreak Sarge and crew give us a breakdown on the situation; get bite you turn into a zombie, shot them in the head, oh and authority sucks at all levels. Deciding hanging with a National Guard unit getting whittled down to bite size chunks isn't for them, Sarge and team head on out, robbing fellow travellors and seeking a place of safety. They learn that Plum Island is a bastion of humanity, but are unaware of the Irish feud going down between the Muldoons and O'Flynns. Old man Flynn believes they should put zombies down for good Muldoon believes they need to teach the undead kin folk to eat animal flesh and do routine jobs about the place. Sort of homicidal handy-persons really, just like living in Campbelltown except without the over the top violence. Naturally Sarge and the guys are dragged into the middle of festivities and naturally zombies get free and do what they do best in Romero world. Add some inexplicable Irish accents to proceedings and you are left wondering what drugs Uncle George was on when he came up with this one. There are a number of things I learnt from Survival that I didn't know, see horror can teach you stuff. Undead chicks still love to ride their horses all over the shop. The moon is going to crash into the earth following a zombie apocalypse, check the last scene. And gosh there's like an enclave of Irish people living off the coast of mainland America who like nothing better than to shoot each other. Did Romero kind of forget to touch basis with a reality check here? After five zombie flicks he is still beating the same drum, dancing to the same song, and trying to push the same political agenda down our throats. What he forgot to do with Survival was toss a good movie our way with zombies that are, you know, scary and stuff. I got the distinct impression that our resident zombies had been demoted to overly bitey children in this flick rather than being a clear and present danger. Where was my fear factor, where was “we are them”, where was the new twist on what ails society rather than simply "people suck in their dealings with each other". In short could the Aliens please replace pod-person Romero with the real dude, we aren't fooled over here. Romero is as usual trying to make a point with Survival, it's just that I didn't care what that point was if it's wrapped in the sort of trash that passes for Hollywood horror in the modern era. The question that has to be asked is whether or not Romero has become socially irrelevant? In Survival the Godfather of the modern zombie flick has all the resonance of a sixteen year old blogger rallying against the machine, just prior to rushing off to see the latest Twilight or Transformers flick. Sorry kids you are the problem, learn to deal, you aren't anti-social you are what the Advertising people would term “prime meat”. The social messages Romero presents us with, in atrocious dialogue that would make a film school student blush, has all the flavour of watered down maple syrup dripping off faux pancakes at a MacDonald's restaurant. It's no longer sit up and take notice, it's bludgeoning the audience around the head time. I like subversive horror, it's when the dark genre is at it's best, with Survival Romero delivers all the angst of a particularly irritating Emo poet of zero aptitude. I knew I was in trouble with this movie right from the first zombie attack involving CGI blood. Yes CGI blood kids, was Savini on holiday during the making of this movie? By the end of the first block I had consigned myself to committing heresy, writing a bad review of a Romero zombie flick. Yes I know a lot of folks didn't like Diary, but hey most of those people liked Cloverfield, you know sixteen year old blog syndrome. Any wise Survival was going down quicker than LiLo's driving record as things stumbled from rotten to complete bollocks. Besides dialogue that made me wonder if Romero didn't write it on a napkin at his favourite fast food outlet, there were plot developments that had me raising my eyebrows in shocked unbelief, characters who were little more than cardboard cut outs, and the sort of humour that only a mentally deficient Goth would find remotely amusing. The movie never picked up, never caught me up in it's magic, and quite frankly lumbered through it's paces without stopping at station wow from first frame to last frame. It's taken six zombie movies but Romero is unfortunately bereft of ideas and is labouring to deliver. I really wanted to like Romero's latest “dead” movie, even with the bad reviews coming out of North America, but couldn't bring myself to dial on-board this groove train. A pretty piss weak effort from the big fella, maybe he should give it away. Weakest and worse of the series, give it a miss, and check out Undead instead.
ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ... A zombie movie without bite from Romero, the end is nigh folks!
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