Survival of the Dead: Film review

Survival of the dead, 2009 is a horror film written and directed by the American- Canadian producer, “George A. Romero”. Also known for “Dawn of the dead”, “Land of the dead” and “Night of the living dead”, George A. Romero invites his audience into a whole new dimension full of flesh eating zombies with his “dead pentalogy” films as addition to other familiars, “The crazies” (1973) and “Diary of the dead” (2009). Known for his horror classics, Romero’s films are great for analysing and digging deep into the auteur theory by Andrew Sarris and investigating the best techniques into creating an imaginative horror trailer.

Brief plot outline:
As the dead returns to life and two Irish- American families, the “O’Flynn’s” and the “Muldoon’s” battle against each other, the question of “will the zombies ever change and eat anything other than humans?” is asked when Romero creates a follow-on film from “Diary of the dead”. When a group of National Guard deserters see a viral video created by “Patrick O’Flynn” (Kenneth Welsh), inviting other survivors into safety on “Plum Island”, the group find an abandoned armoured truck and begin their journey. Finding aboard a safe full of cash, the rogues decide to take the safe key with the luck that in the future, scientists will create a cure for the zombies and the money can be used for possibly the safety of the living. Arriving at the ferry station, zombies begin to attack, killing O’Flynn’s entire group and leaving him to climb aboard with the national guards.  As they enter Plum Island, “Shamus Muldoon” (Richard Fitzpatrick)’s intentions are shown by zombies of the island being chained up to objects that relate to them, including a mailman chained to a post box and a woodsman chained to logs and an axe. With the hope of the cure, Muldoon’s intentions are to keep the zombies alive whereas O’Flynn has only one thing in mind, killing them.

Which two scenes impressed you most? Why?
When watching the film, I found two scenes which stood out for me most in terms of being most pleasing to watch, being full of action, having inspiring mise-en-scene, dramatic sound and a great narrative. The first of the two was a scene that was set on Plum Island, with all of the predominant characters playing a part. The scene opens with the O’Flynn’s walking into the farm yard where one of Patrick O’Flynn’s twin daughters has been put into a horse run and is aimlessly walking up and down as a zombie. A male walks Jane O’Flynn’s (Kathleen Munroe) horse into the run with her as the asynchronous sound of Shamus Muldoon is heard stating “We tried this with a lot of the dickheads. We tried to feed them rabbits, squirrels and pigs. This time we’re going to try something bigger.” Muldoon goes on to explain how it’s more difficult for O’Flynn to kill now that it’s his own genes and how he might understand what he is trying to do with the other zombies now. Allowing all of the other chained up zombies to witness what he expects to happen and saying “maybe they’ll learn something”, all of the groaning, slow moving monsters stand aligned up against the gate before the gate is shot open and they all escape, violently killing people from Muldoon’s group.


 As the scene moves on, O’Flynn’s other twin daughter is seen walking through the woods in the dark. As she moves through the silent woods, diegetic, asynchronous sounds of twigs snapping and owls hooting is heard whilst a collision cut from silent to loud awakes the scene when a black silhouette of a person crosses the screen with dramatic music. The tension builds until a hand grabs a tree trunk in front of Janet. The camera zooms out and one of the national guards, “boy”, stands in front of her asking “What would you do with a million dollars?” The reason why I chose this scene as one of the most inspiring is due to the emotional, dramatic and heart racing activities that occur. As the most busiest scene in the film, I feel that the spectators finally get to see all of the zombies in a close-up, and get to see them ripping open bodies, killing people and genuinely filling the film with body horror, parallel music, low key lighting, quick montages and point of view shots of the people being attacked.

The second scene within the film that I chose as the most impressive was when Francisco (Stefano DiMatteo) jumps into the sea to get to the ferry for the group to travel to safety. Jumping into the water, Francisco begins to swim to the ferry shown by an aerial shot. Others from O’Flynn’s group begin to shoot from an old barn, firing bullets into the water, shown slowing down from a low angle as Francisco successfully dodges them whilst swimming towards the ferry. A handheld camera allows quick montages and canted angles to illustrate the fast paced action going on whilst zombies from underwater begin to attack Francisco. A collision cut repeats from quiet diegetic underwater muffles to loud splashes and firing of bullets over water. Biting the zombie’s finger off, he manages to swim on and safely climb aboard the ferry. The reason why I chose this scene is due to the exciting, fast paced action and quick montage that added to the tension of whether Francisco was going to make it to the ferry or not. Using many techniques that are common for horror conventions meant that the spectator gets a sense of how the character within the film feels; disorientated, frustrated and panicked.

How has watching this film helped you understand this genre of filmmaking? Which features on the genre checklist did you spot in the film? When? How?
Watching “Survival of the Dead” gave me a chance to dig my teeth into the horror genre and analyse all of the different techniques used and determine which of those worked and which didn’t. Some of the features I witnessed within the film included parallel music, body horror, quick montages, the male hero, the final girl, collision cutting, slow moving monsters and the fear of death. Firstly, when focusing on parallel music, I felt that all scenes that needed tension had dramatic music, all scenes that were fast paced had rhythmic music and all scenes that were slow paced had mysterious, quiet music. An example of this within the film is when Francisco began to swim from the truck to the ferry. As Francisco bites the finger off a zombie, slow, mysterious music comes on as the finger slowly drifts down to the bottom of the water, illustrating disturbance and giving the spectator time to analyse what has happened.

The second feature, body horror, is one that was used throughout the film and is even used in the scene just described. From shooting the heads off zombies to ripping bodies open, the body horror within “Survival of the Dead” is much like all the other films created by George A. Romero and is designed to be graphic and stomach turning. By witnessing gore such as this, I feel that if I were to include body horror in my trailer, I would use some of the imaginative techniques that Survival of the dead includes, making it visually realistic and vile to watch.

When focusing on characters and representations, the male hero and final girl were two characters that I thought stuck out effectively. The final girl, “Tomboy”, is a stereotypical homosexual female that acts as more of the male character than some of the males within the film. Leaving on the ferry at the end, the spectators are able to establish that she is the final girl as the other two sexualised twin sister characters die, being the female victims.

The male hero, Sarge, began the film by being the strong character that takes over and does the more masculine, mature activities and ends the film leaving safely on the ferry. Stereotypically, Sarge appears like the male hero, being tall, brown haired, and muscly with stubble. Collision cutting and quick montages both play an important part throughout the film, making the action seem exciting, frantic and quite simply out of control. Going from quiet to loud also gives the horror film a slight fear factor, surprising the audience by this sudden change, making our heart race. The last feature, fear of death, was used in specific scenes such as when “Boy” was collecting water from in the woods. Forgetting his gun, “Boy” cowardly walks through the woods with only his bucket for protection. Looking around in every direction, the camera plays with his fear, tracking his movement as if somebody is watching him. As the slow, rhythmic music gets louder, the tension increases. When the music calms down again whilst Boy collects his water, a sudden collision cut happens as an ear piercing crow flies straight under the camera, making the fear play on the spectator’s minds, just like the character within the film. Walking back with his bucket of water, he steps quietly, looking around him until the figure of a zombie walks in front of the camera, making him jump in his step. As an overall ending, I found that it was open, due to the three survivors, Tomboy, Sarge and Boy boarding the ferry with all of the money from the safe. Muldoon and O’Flynn are both seen left on the island, both as zombies and still attempting to kill each other.

Which aspects of the film would you like to include in your own trailer? Why?
Having watched this film, I have come to conclusions over which features I would like to include in my own horror trailer. These aspects include; parallel music, close-up shots, gory sound effects, realistic body horror, fast paced action and quick montages. Having chosen these features, I feel that a lot of my trailer will be made up of technological features that make the film full of tension, suspense, drama and fear. A particular scene within the film that highlighted many of these features is when the zombies were set free from the barn and began tearing open bodies whilst quick montages illustrated how many lives were being taken. The soundtrack was parallel and gave the scene more emotion with the explicit sound effects of ripping open flesh and eating it, shown with close-up shots to show the spectator every bit of detail for the added effect.  

Which aspects of the film would you like to avoid in your own trailer? Why?
On the other hand, the features within this particular film that I feel didn’t work and will avoid using in my own trailer include; voice-overs, sex and the taboo and humourous gore. At the beginning of the film to almost half way through, a voice over narrator, Sarge, tells the story through his eyes whilst acting out the information being told. By doing this, I felt that the horror aspect of the film was taken over by the typical conventions of an action film and by watching this I felt less inclined to feel fear towards the slow paced plot. In other scenes, humourous gore is used to add comedy to the horror. An example of this is when the national guards were traveling on the ferry to Plum Island. When a zombie walks into the shot, one of the guards, Sarge, attempts to kill him with the nearest object to him. Being on a ferry in the middle of nowhere, Sarge grabs him and punches him in the face, pushing him in the railing of the ferry. Grabbing the emergency fire gun from the ferry’s wall, Sarge fires it into the zombie, leaving his face illuminated with fire, almost like a sci-fi character. Walking up next to him, Sarge lights his cigarette by the zombies face before violently kicking him into the water.

By adding the humourous death and Sarge’s calm attitude towards the zombie, I feel that George A. Romero plays on the zombie deaths to add imagination and creativity to the film. Despite this, I feel that the humour defeated the object of the fearful horror and due to wanting a serious horror trailer; I will not be adding humour into my film. The last factor, sex and the taboo, was used in one particular scene within the film. We are first introduced to the female character, Tomboy, whilst she is doing explicit sexual activities. Due to this, I found that the target audience for the film is seen to be predominantly teenage males, leaving spectators such as me feeling uncomfortable and slightly disengaged from the film. 

What was the bests aspect/ more enjoyable moment in the film? Why? Can you recreate this in your own film? How?
For me, the best scene within the film was the last five minutes. As Sarge, Tomboy and Boy drift off into the distance on the boat, a voice-over of Sarge states “We decided to take the money and run. Still, I wondered, what if we could teach the dead to eat something that wasn’t us. I guess we’ll never know”. A sudden cut changes the scene to the next, presenting us with zombies ripping open and pulling out the intestines of a live horse to then eat it.  A voice-over begins again as O’Flynn enters the frame, stumbling and tripping, having turned into a zombie. The frame cuts to exactly the same shot, however this time Muldoon stumbles in. An extreme long shot of the two characters standing on a hill at a short distance from each other is captured before both zombies retrieve a gun from their pockets, firing at each other aimlessly with no bullets left in the gun. The reason why I chose this scene as the most enjoyable throughout the film is due to the dry sense of humour that the open ending leaves. 

Having fought the whole film for only one reason; power, the ending represents how lonely and frivolous the characters are now, having achieved nothing and how pointless their family feud feels now that the zombies are eating animals and not humans. However, the predominant characters have all been killed or turned into a zombie themselves. I feel that I would be able to recreate this dry sense of humour into my horror film by adding a slight “pointless” open ended narration and illustrating how at the end of the day, “you get what you give”.

How does the film show the influence of its “auteur” director? How does it show the director’s filmmaking style and soul? Give examples of three scenes from the movie that show their auteur style.
George A. Romero has his own “auteur director” style in terms of filmmaking. Three of the most well-known examples of his styles are; flipping character stereotypes, introducing anti-sexism into his films and introducing political satire. When focusing on flipping character stereotypes, I feel that Romero introduced this theme in the scene where Tomboy kills Francisco. Having bitten the finger off a zombie, Francisco realises that he doesn’t have much time left until he will become one. Losing strength and hope, Francisco runs away into the woods, leaving Tomboy chasing after him. Realising what she has to do, Tomboy shoots him directly in the head, killing him straight away. Having made Tomboy the character that ends Francisco’s life, I feel that Romero attempted to illustrate how strong she was as a person and how in any other film, the female character would cry, scream, shake and disagree with the arrangement.

Anti-sexism within the film is used in many of the scenes that Tomboy is in, linking in with the idea of flipping character stereotypes. By having Tomboy in the film, playing a national guard, I feel that Romero intended to prove how it’s not only men who act as the strong, capable characters and due to being a final girl, could be classed as a hero also. An example within the film of this theme is when Sarge, Tomboy, Francisco and Crickett circle a group of strangers in the forest, interrogating them before killing them. Being part of the group allowed the film to show equality and how she was at the same level of the males.  Lastly, the theme of political satire within the film was illustrated through the use of zombies and the evolution of the war through the conflicts in Ireland. I feel that George A. Romero introduces the idea of war into this film and represents how it destroys nations by the last sequence of the zombies taking over the whole of Plum Island.