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Survival of the Dead (2009)

tomatometer

30

Average Rating: 4.9/10
Reviews Counted: 83
Fresh: 25 | Rotten: 58

Survival of the Dead offers glimmers of Romero's savage wit, but not nearly enough to make up for his unusually uninspired directing and a lack of new ideas

10

Average Rating: 4.2/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 19

Survival of the Dead offers glimmers of Romero's savage wit, but not nearly enough to make up for his unusually uninspired directing and a lack of new ideas

audience

21

liked it
Average Rating: 2.4/5
User Ratings: 7,452

My Rating

Movie Info

A group of rogue soldiers seek shelter from the zombie apocalypse on scenic Plum Island, only to become caught up in a bitter feud between two warring families. Sarge Crocket (Alan Van Sprang) and his motley crew of military abandoners are searching for a safe place to rest when they cross paths with Patrick O'Flynn (Kenneth Welsh). O'Flynn has been banished from Plum Island, where his family is locked in a longtime quarrel with the Muldoons. The O'Flynns see the flesh-eaters as subhuman, never

R,

Horror

George A. Romero

Apr 30, 2010

Magnolia Pictures - Official Site External Icon

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All Critics (87) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (25) | Rotten (58) | DVD (6)

Even Romero's staunchest fans might conclude their hero is going through the motions here. Yes, almost like a zombie.

August 20, 2010 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

What we've got here is a just a B-movie western with buckets of gore, which might be fine coming from a Romero wannabe but not from the genuine article.

August 19, 2010 Full Review Source: Toronto Star
Toronto Star
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George A. Romero's entertaining new zombie feature shows that you can't keep a good man down.

July 7, 2010 | Comment (1)
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Steeped in fan-pleasing gore but woefully thin on ideas, originality (beyond new zombie-offing methods) or directorial flair.

July 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Survival of the Dead almost never snaps into focus. Even its oxymoronic title doesn't work. It feels marginal, like an extended footnote.

June 1, 2010 Full Review Source: New York Magazine
New York Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Placidly photographed and lacking in urgency, Survival shows us the living flailing at fate and the dead just flailing.

May 28, 2010 Full Review Source: New York Times
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Are George Romero's late-career ghoul operas fatigued retreads of his seminal zombie classics, or eccentrically satirical twists on the genre tropes he pioneered? Survival of the Dead isn't about to clear things up.

April 22, 2011 Full Review Source: House Next Door
House Next Door

full review at Movies for the Masses

December 17, 2010 Full Review Source: Movies for the Masses
Movies for the Masses

"A man dies, he gets stupid," someone observes in the film. Maybe if a man makes too many films about the dead, the same fate awaits him. Mr. Romero, you are on notice.

October 15, 2010 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

Romero has freed his story up for a lighter, more amusingly misanthropic take on the worst tendencies of people.

September 12, 2010 Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

An exercise in beating a dead horse as well as eating a dead horse, the film demonstrates that the metaphorical usefulness of the zombie genre has reached a state of near rigor mortis, if not putrefaction.

August 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

The creator is still driving his old Model-T to the ground.

August 20, 2010 Full Review Source: Jam! Movies
Jam! Movies

A sad confirmation of if not George Romero's complete creative bankruptcy then certainly his wildly diminished gift for imparting glancing metaphorical dread.

July 5, 2010 Full Review Source: Shared Darkness
Shared Darkness

Maybe it's due to the fact that Romero's work never struck me as particularly exciting or important in the first place, but I mostly enjoyed this newest entry.

June 17, 2010 Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Survival is crawling with weird ideas that make no sense, but Romero treats them as gems of life-changing import.

June 17, 2010 Full Review Source: Kansas City Star
Kansas City Star

Big set pieces showing how atrophied Romero's cutting and tactical framing have become is depressing to anyone who has valued his films for more than just splatter.

June 7, 2010 Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly
L.A. Weekly

...fast, often witty...

June 2, 2010 Full Review Source: Brand X
Brand X

At last finds the great Romero with nothing new to say about zombies.

June 2, 2010 Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy
Antagony & Ecstasy

Feels like one of those goofy old Star Trek episodes in which Kirk and Spock go back in time to make some sort of baldly allegorical point.

June 2, 2010 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Weekly
Philadelphia Weekly

..has at least one great image: a zombie woman on horseback endlessly galloping around the island like some Gothic, Bronte-inspired ghost.

May 31, 2010 Full Review Source: LarsenOnFilm
LarsenOnFilm

A decent zombie film

May 30, 2010 Full Review Source: ESplatter | Comments (3)
ESplatter

A more cerebral means of cinematically satiating one's wanton bloodlust craving!

May 30, 2010 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze
NewsBlaze

Audience Reviews for Survival of the Dead

A squad of AWOL soldiers happens upon a remote island inhabited by two feuding clans with very different ideas of how to deal with the zombie holocaust. I'd love to say that the latest in George Romero's spiralling Dead franchise has finally stopped the rot, but I'd be lying. Survival Of The Dead's recipe of weak slapstick comedy and cartoon gore turns the once fearful zombies into something of a deeply un-intimidating joke and I wish that just ONCE, a Hollywood casting director could actually cast an actual Irish actor instead of just assuming that an American drawling "Oi'm frum Oireland t'be sure" is good enough. The uninspiring small screen cast are very difficult to care about and I would describe the amateurish feel of the whole thing as "TV standard" if The Walking Dead hadn't come along and proven how high "TV standard" has become over recent years. Instead of witty, insightful satire Romero has chosen to turn The Dead series into a cross between The Munsters and The Beverly Hill Billies and the addition of a half-baked message about nationalism at the very end just doesn't cut it. Easily the worst of the series and I'm sad to say that it's about time he called it a day because it's just getting a little embarrassing now.
May 21, 2013
garyX
xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

Not my favourite zombie movie at all, in fact it was pretty terrible and even if your a huge zombie fan you may want to avoid this movie.
February 5, 2012
FiLmCrAzY
Film Crazy

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead (UK)
  • George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead (CA)
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