On an island off the coast of North America, local residents simultaneously fight a zombie epidemic while hoping for a cure to return their un-dead relatives back to their human state.
We’ve now reached the final entry in the franchise, but hopefully there’ll be more in the future.
Not only is this the last entry in the franchise but this was also the least successful film in Romero’s Dead films series. This has always puzzled me as I felt this release was the closest we got to the much loved original dead trilogy, sometimes the audience really doesn’t know what it wants. I
A-lot of fans felt this was Romero’s worst film of the series but I have to highly disagree, for me that was “Land Of The Dead”. I felt this film took everything back to basics and was more of what you’d expect from his work, just with a bit less social commentary.
Romero gives us some fantastic characters with this release, they’re really enjoyable characters to watch . It’s not too much in your face as his past work but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to watch, he still serves us a dark view of the world which fans want to see and that part fully delivers.
Sure it’s not his greatest work but I feel by now fans we’re expecting too much from Romero, his iconic and legendary status were more of a hindrance than anything else. He still delivered a solid film that blew away most zombie films of the time and to me personally he still proved he was the best at what he does.
Be sure to give “Survival Of The Dead” a chance, it’s a good, solid and entertaining story.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
This film marks the first time that a character from a previous Living Dead film returns to star in a sequel, with Alan Van Sprang as Sarge “Nicotine” Crockett having been seen in Diary of the Dead (2007), and also playing Brubaker in Land of the Dead (2005). The only two other times this has come close to happening was Tom Savini reprising his role of Blades from Dawn of the Dead (1978) as a cameo in “Land of the Dead” in zombie form, and Joseph Pilato playing an unnamed police captain in “Dawn of the Dead” returning to play Captain Rhodes in Day of the Dead (1985).
The cast are all Canadian, and the movie was shot entirely in Canada.
This marks George A. Romero’s second time using the SCOPE format (2.35:1, 2.39:1, 2.4:1) for his Living Dead films. The first time was Land of the Dead (2005). The other Dead films were either shot in 1.33:1 (Night of the Living Dead (1968)) or 1.85:1 (Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985)).
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