Survival of the Dead (2009)

[pedromonkey]

i enjoyed Survival, although the film should have been much longer, on the scale of say, Dawn and lot more time should have spent on the Waring families instead of the stoopid National guardsmen. It was only 88 mins long but felt it was missing the middle somehow...i very much rate Diary though, It's a great film and one that i think will grow more in popularity as it gets older.

[Gojirosan]

Originally Posted by pedromonkey

i very much rate Diary though, It's a great film and one that i think will grow more in popularity as it gets older.

I agree. It's too easy to forget that when Day Of The Dead came out it was widely considered a dreadful disaster compared to Night and Dawn. Now it's seen as a classic!

[42ndStreetFreak]

But "Day" was and is a great zombie film (box office is a different matter) "Diary" is, and will be forever, a stinky old turd pie with vomit glaze.

[antmumford]

Originally Posted by 42ndStreetFreak

But "Day" was and is a great zombie film (box office is a different matter) "Diary" is, and will be forever, a stinky old turd pie with vomit glaze.

Here here

[Gojirosan]

Nope, you're both wrong. Diary... was ace.

[42ndStreetFreak]

[vipco]

I think Dairy was very good , but imy first impression of it was poor. It took a few veiwings till I realised just how good and clever it actually is.

Survival though I dont rate that good as one of the 'Dead' film's .
The two warring families reminded me slightly of the situation between the scientist / military groups in Day OTD, only much weeker, and the film did seem to lack a middle. Maybe if more time was spent on the soldiers story on reaching the harbour it mighta been better.
And why do all female soldiers in these special teams (SOTD, Resi Evil to name but two) seem to be alpha gay's.? I've met many female soldiers and none were gay or gung ho.

[pedromonkey]

yep diary is a definate grower, after at least 3 viewings i finally realised it was actually a clever film.

@ vipco: totally agree on the female soldiers thing, they all seem to be some kind of re-incarnation of Pvt. Vasquez from Aliens..

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

I preferred Diary much more than Land. I think Land was very anti-climatic; I mean you've waited 20 years for a new instalment in the Romero zombie saga, and what do you get?: mediocrity.

At least Diary did take the zombie series in a new and interesting direction: Yes, it did play on the shaky-cam craze with the success of Cloverfield, but is still an enjoyable film imo.

Arguably though if Land had been a stand alone zombie film from a director other than Romero, it would definitely be one of the better ones. I think we tend to get biased by the genius of the mans earlier work, and expect nothing but greatness all the time!

Still to see Survival though... ()

[Roughale]

The problem with all Romero zombie films is the comparison - maybe Dawn can be taken out of that list, as it just delivered on all sides and set the mark very high. I know how I had to let Day grow on me for a while, at firast I was rather disappointed as it did not deliver what I had expected (whatever that was - too many moons have passed since then...), but I always knew that it was a real gem and it grew bigger and bigger over time, especially helping was the hunt for an uncut copy of this banned film in Germany - I still have that first VHS copy from Holland I paid 89 DM for (approx 45 Euro - but keep in mind, the time that has passed and I did not have a lot of money back then!)...

Then came the endless feeling break and when Land was announced, of course was I happy about the fact, but I also knew to be careful with firing up the expectation - so I expected a good zombie film with a functioning sub-text and got that. The most trouble I had was with the tendency towards using CGI blood (I have to watch Land again to see if it had already been making out the most effects) - you have to know, I am a big fan of Savini's work and may be an old fashioned git anyway

Then came Diary and I took it as it was announced: A new start of the zombie theme, made in a fashion to reflect today's filmmaking - and it worked mostly and I also found the sub-text that underlined all of Romero's zombie films, shifting as well with time and the change of our real world - therefor, I like Diary and the very last scene may be one of George's strongest!

Now with Survival, I miss a lot, expectation was low but it still failed big time for me, it had many silly CGI effects, it lacked interesting or grappable characters (could be more fun at home on my FLAT-screen TV ) or ones you could sympathize with and most importantly it lacks any sub-text (at least I have not found anything hinting there is one!) making the film one of the heap of many - sad, really...

In my ranking I would put the films like this:

Dawn
Day
Night (although I am aware of its outstanding place in film history!)

<gap>

Land
Diary

<St. Andreas Fault>

Survival