TIFF Part Three: Survival of the Dead Review, With Added Zombie Walk!

Three things:

Stuff goes on in Toronto that can be described as "rad". One such thing - and it goes on elsewhere, including in Sydney - is an annual zombie walk, where people make themselves up as undead, and shamble through the city's streets.

George A. Romero, the man responsible for zombie as we know them, is now a Canadian citizen, living in Toronto.

George A. Romero's latest film, which was shot in Canada, screened on the third night of TIFF's Midnight Madness program.

These three things come together. The zombie walk is ordinarily in October, but an extra event was organised to celebrate Romero's new citizenship and he premiere of his new film. Zombies of Toronto walked through downtown, arriving at Dundas square to be greeted by Romero before a free public screening of Night of the Living Dead. His first film. Later that night, his newest.

Survival of the Dead

It is without question that George A Romero is the godfather of the zombie film. His slow-moving, mindless creatures are iconic and unforgettable. Sure, we have the creatures of Return of the Living Dead and their cries of “brains”, and the more recent development of zombies running, but Romero’s creatures are the classics. After the 1968 release of Night of the Living Dead, he made one zombie film a decade; the 70s had Dawn of the Dead and the 80s Day of the Dead. Then, after a quiet, this decade has had the man bring zombies to cinemas three times. It should be something to celebrate. While 2004’s Land of the Dead was decent, Diary of the Dead, Romero’s found-footage style reboot of the series, was a mess. It does not bode well for Survival that it uses a minor character from that film as a launching pad.

Said character is Crocket (Alan Van Sprang), a former army man who now leads a small troupe around the zombie-ravaged land, trying to survive using general amorality. We are also taken to an island off the coast of Delaware, to a pair of feuding Irishmen, Patrick O’Flynn and Seamus Muldoon (Kenneth Welsh and Richard Fitzpatrick) and their kin. O’Flynn has been traveling the island, killing the infected and the undead without mercy, while Muldoon believes that there must be a cure, or a fix to the problem. O’Flynn is banished, and soon meets with Crocket and his crew, before the whole group takes a stolen ferry to the island.

As expected, amongst the anarchy, social commentary is at play. Romero’s target in Survival is conflict. Not just war; this metaphor can be applied to something as large as that, or, on a smaller scale, the two main opposing sides of western politics, or any opposing fundamental beliefs. O’Flynn and Muldoon opposing viewpoints, neither of which is wicked at heart, but their conflict is so strong that what their fighting is about is overshadowed by the fighting itself, and the destruction that comes with it. It’s a worthy message for the film, and a relevant one, but the film itself is the opposite of that. Romero is an important filmmaker, and his past work has earned him deserved and everlasting respect, but Survival of the Dead is a tired film. The scares are barely there, and arrive with cheap shock sound effects. The characters are for the most part weak, speaking flat dialogue. The gore is fine, but good zombie effects are not a rare thing. There are some fun moments, and the characters of O’Flynn and Muldoon provide some laughs. Overall, however, this film is, unlike its moral, unimportant and uninspiring.

It is heartening to see a director, going into old age, continuing a filmmaking career with the same soul and passion forty years after starting. Perhaps he is messing with his audience: a major sequence of Survival involves the question of whether a zombie will or will not bite a horse. It takes guts to put that kind of surrealism into a horror movie. The film’s final shot, too, is a killer. But it might be time for the auteur to move on. Not away from filmmaking; not even away from horror. Perhaps he needs to find a new theme, to tackle something different. Romero should not be written off, but he needs to make better films than this one.

4/10

Some more pictures of the zombie walk, and of Romero at Survival:

This guy is done up as a zombie from early in Dawn of the Dead. Technically, he's in blackface, but it's a pretty excellent costume.

Security at the event, backed up by police officers on bikes - in the background - was handled by people actually dressed up as Umbrella Corp guys from Resident Evil.

George Romero and Colin Geddes after the film.

More to come!