George A. Romero
Survival Of The Dead

To exorcise disappointment, one must vent. A preface to immediately drop the mask: Survival Of The Dead (2009) is not only, by far, the worst film by George A. Romero, it is one of the most terrifying horror films of recent years. "Terrifying," read "unwatchable." It seems that the master of horror (former?) was forced to shoot a feature film in three days based on a screenplay conceived in twenty minutes. Story and various developments sadly credited to Romero himself, therefore without the mitigating factor of "They ruined the idea for him...".

The plot, curiously, seems to belong more to a western than a film of the walking dead: a cheerful island contested by two rival families against the backdrop of the classic zombie plague. One of the heads of the family wants to annihilate the living dead without scruples, the other wants to educate them not to feed on humans (in short, an idea recycled from that Day Of The Dead twenty-five years before, and now a utopian scientific research is replaced by religious fanaticism). The basic plot is, to be lenient, shaky.

There is no moment of tension or fright, and the few ironic hints fall flat, making the protagonists two-dimensional and vaguely unlikable. Even the technical aspect is forgettable, but despite this let's talk about it for sheer sadism: the cinematography is worthy of a TV movie financed by RAI, the special effects are not even on par with the two previous films, and I sincerely hope that the great Tom Savini was not still responsible for the makeup effects, otherwise, it would be a clear sign of senility due to old age.

Improbable situations on the brink of involuntary ridiculousness, characters shooting at each other and joking about it two minutes later, zombies on horseback (!), rubbery splatter scenes.

It really seems that the Romero saga has been in freefall for about ten years, with little chance of redemption: Land Of The Dead was a good film, although not up to the debuts; Diary Of The Dead was a first misstep, bland and stumbling but salvageable; this Survival Of The Dead, totally crippled. Is everything to be thrown away? Yes. I'd be lying to myself if I wanted to find something successful in these 82'.

PS: we agree, my words reveal the disappointment of an injured fan. But don't tell me that the "gory" scenes aren't well-known, that the supposed attack on religious fanaticism is not simplistic and irrelevant, that the desire to contaminate the genre is in this case a total lack of ideas, that the protagonist is not less characterized than an Action Man (for those who remember it).

PPS: it is necessary to recognize the courage of the director and producers, the film was presented at the Venice Film Festival.