Film Society of Lincoln Center Shows Survival of the Dead This Saturday
If you live in the New York City area, then you should go check out the screening of George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead, as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center this Saturday, February 20th, at the Walter Reade Theater. Showing begins at 9:15pm and the Walter Reade Theater is located at 165 West 65th Street (upper level, between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.). If any of our ZRC readers get to see this showing, please tell us your thoughts. The ZRC can not wait to see this film!
Comments(6)
Any word on when the rest of us will see it?
No word yet Don, but I’ll keep checking on it.
I went to the screening this past weekend and as a lifelong zombie and Romero fan, it pains me to say the following: this movie was completely and utterly horrible. It was so bad that I doubt it will ever see a release even half as wide as Diary of the Dead got, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it never sees a theater release at all. So bad I won’t even buy it, and I’m both a zombie film fanatic and a Romero completist. I know what you’re thinking “this guy is no zombie fan, how could he say such a thing?” But I promise you, I am a zombie fan, and more, I am an enormous Romero fan,and not just Night though Day, I have and enjoy Land and even found Diary enjoyable to some degree, bought it and have watched it several times since. I’ve read both Knight of the Living Dead (the film study of George A. Romero) and Gospel of the Living Dead (a study of religious symbolism, allegory and moralism in Romero’s dead films). I bought and watched Martin and the Crazies sight unseen just because I loved Romero’s zombie films so much. Dammit, I have a full upper chest tattoo of zombies inspired by the art in the Toe Tags zombie comics that Romero did for DC comics a few years back. Taking all that into account (and I promise you these are just a few of the Romero-centric bullet points of my deep enjoyment and respect for the Romero zombie films Night through Diary) Survival of the Dead is horrendous. Aside from a few, and I mean a FEW, moments of enjoyable gore, this film has no redeeming value whatsoever and is more likely to tarnish your view of Romero’s catalog and make you sad and embarrassed for having seen it than actually provide an enjoyable experience. The plot is so paper thin it might as well be transparent, none of the character’s have anything even closely resembling a two-dimensional or three-dimensional personality, and the dialog lacks anything even resembling Romero’s trademark depth and grit. But that’s not all, there’s also action sequences that look like transplants from forghorn leghorn cartoons and hokey plot devices that appear to be culled from bad soap operas. Need examples? How about when a wooden wall that three characters are hiding closely behind gets blown up by a hand grenade, but instead of them being injured by the explosion or shards of wood, they are unmoved and just have black soot makeup on their dumb-smiling faces? How about an established character from the first half of the movie, all of a sudden having a secret twin that no one knew about just appear to be used as a plot device? I couldn’t make this up and would never have imagined that a Romero zombie film could be this bad. Anyway, I’m not a big fan of negative reviews but this needed to be said. Sorry for the diatribe, if anyone feels this movie was anything other than Romero dragging his own good name through the mud just for the chance to make one more movie, please sound off. Sorry if this get’s anyone down, most of all anyone who worked on this movie. C’est La Vie.
Brian,
Thanks for the honest and thorough review. I believe that you are a true Romero fan, and I also believe that this film sounds like complete garbage. There’s a reason why films get released straight to video, or not at all. I just don’t understand what George is thinking or doing – Is it just for a payday? Is it his age? I really don’t get it.
Thanks for the warning. You may very well be right…but I’ve still got to check this out myself.
I’ve said it after Land of the Dead and Dairy were made…..Romero is going the way of George Lucas. He should’ve hung it up or moved on a long time ago. It’s like watching an old school fighter trying to recapture his hayday; but instead, he keeps getting knocked the “F” out. Great review though!