George A Romero's Survival of the Dead: First Blood!

[ad4m22]

The first clip from the finale of George A Romero's second Dead trilogy is online, fresh from the Toronto Film Festival!



Here's the Festival's synopsis of Romero's latest gore-drenched satire-'em-up:

In a world where the dead rise to menace the living, rogue soldier Crocket (Alan Van Sprang) leads a band of military dropouts to refuge from the endless chaos. As they search for a place "where the shit won't get you," they meet banished patriarch Patrick O'Flynn (played with zeal by Kenneth Welsh), who promises a new Eden on the fishing and ranching outpost Plum Island. The men arrive, only to find themselves caught in an age-old battle between O'Flynn's family and rival clan the Muldoons. It turns out that Patrick was expelled from the isle for believing that the only good zombie is a dead zombie, while the Muldoons think it's wrong to dispatch afflicted loved ones, attempting to look after their undead kinfolk until a cure is found. But their bid for stability on the homestead has turned perverse: the undead are chained inside their homes, pretending to live normal lives - and the consequences are bloody. A desperate struggle for survival will determine whether the living and the dead can coexist.

Such apocalyptic themes have long haunted George A. Romero, much to the delight of his legions of fans. He now follows Crocket, a minor character from his last film, Diary of the Dead, to present a new doomsday scenario. In that film, Crocket made a brief appearance with his militia to appropriate the heroes' supplies at gunpoint. For Crocket's subsequent journey, Romero does something that most horror directors have neglected to do in recent years - he uses the genre to address societal issues. Romero here creates a world in which he can wrestle with the human condition while simultaneously finding new and creative ways to exterminate lurching flesh eaters.

Romero's name is an iconic one. He created both the modern horror film and the modern zombie with 1968's Night of the Living Dead before going on to create one of - if not the - greatest horrors of all time, 1978's Dawn of the Dead. 1985 brought on Day of the Dead and in 1990 Romero rewrote his own masterpiece for the Living Dead remake. 2004 saw the legend finally return for the excellent Land of the Dead and 2007 saw the release of the opinion-dividing Diary of the Dead. Night was remade a third time in 2006 (in 3D, starring The Devil's Rejects' Captain Spaulding, Sid Haig), while Zack Snyder's 2004 re-imagining of Dawn of the Dead made the director a star. The less said about 2008's Day of the Dead, or even unofficial knock-off shit fest Day of the Dead 2: Contagium the better.

As Romero's films has grown, so too has his message. He's attacked Vietnam, racism, consumerism, commercialism, capitalism, genetic experimentation, slavery, the roles of genders, the war on terror, the class divide, the media and even filmmaking itself. With Survival looking to exploit fear and paranoia (something so relevant it's almost uncomfortable) and the clip above showing a decidedly hilarious demise, it's safe to say that Romero isn't slowing down any time soon. Maybe this is the man for the World War Z gig, eh? Just let him keep making movies until there really is no more room in hell.



Source: http://twitchfilm.net/news/2009/09/tiff-09-first-clip-from-romeros-survival-of-the-dead.php

[dalmatianjaws]

Second trilogy? Wasn't Land of the Dead set in the original universe and Diary of the Dead was another, separate, origin story?

Land of the Dead is a real solid, fun movie. Lacks the brilliance of his original two movies, but still good filmmaking. I turned Diary off after ten minutes. Utter crap. Total missfire.

[ad4m22]

Second trilogy was easier to write.

Agreed that Diary was a misstep. Nothing in that movie made a lick of sense. Nobody reacted in any rational way and the idea of the film being edited and narrated just sucked the life out of it.

Fingers crossed for Survival, eh?

[Sheridan Passell]

Diary Of The Dead wasn't a disaster, it had pros and cons. It was originally written to be a series of webisodes for mobile phones and it really shows. I enjoyed seeing what Romero did with the videocamera pov medium, the acting was generally fine and the script wasn't bad. The main problem was, rather than being sub-text, the open discussion of the theme just consumed way too much time and got way too preachy, and I don't know for all its talk of new media what the message was actually supposed to be? It was totally unrealistic too in its depiction of the technology, especially when they sit down to 'edit' a scene. Like Land Of The Dead the ending was weak, totally anti-climactic.

Disappointing, but a lot more interesting than I'd heard it would be.

[ad4m22]

Romero's got a thing for putting really good lines at the end of his movies. I really loved the end of Land, there was so much tragedy in that, and the line, 'They're just looking for a place to go, same as us,' is probably one of the best zombie quotes since, 'They're coming to get you Barbara!'

Diary's send off line is equally great. 'Are we even worth saving? You tell me.' Just a shame that the rest of the movie doesn't stick to that line.

[dalmatianjaws]

I turned Diary off when that fat guy with the beard appears in the dorm room. I think he was looting. His acting was really, really awful. And I spent every moment up to that point trying to justify what I was seeing by thinking "well, it's been a while since you've seen a Romero film, maybe this is a good movie and you're not quite getting it."

It wasn't a good movie. He totally missed the boat on the while "overly mediated society" band wagon and handled the subject matter with boxing gloves. He cast poor actors and put them in boring situations.

And it's not scary.

It actually carries all the weaknesses of Day of the Dean, which it pretty much considered his worst of the first three. Only in this case, it wasn't groundbreaking. It was rehashing stuff he'd created years before.

[dalmatianjaws]

Day of the Dean is a great horror movie about an undead college professor.