Review #124: Survival of the Dead (2009)

This review was originally written in October 2021.

October 2021 Horror Movie Review #10- Survival of the Dead (2009)

Remember a couple days ago when I complained that Land of the Dead was boring? Hoo boy, what a sweet summer child I was. Land was boring, Survival is boooooooring. I went through this entire movie without caring AT ALL about ANY of the characters. The closest I came to caring whatsoever was for the "main character" (if he can even be called that) of Sarge, simply because he was the least caught up in his own nonsense. I'm a little bit confused as to why they thought it important to tie him in to the previous movie (maybe they just happened to cast him in this movie after he played the super-duper important role of "army guy who shows up for ten seconds and tells them to turn off the camera" in Diary, but the idea that they took that nothing-character and spun him off into his own film about a bunch of rednecks arguing over who-knows-what is just too hilarious to ignore) but whatever the case, he was the least boring of the boring characters and I wished him no particular harm compared to the rest.

I complained about this last time, I'm gonna complain about it again today (and probably more in the future, as long as people keep putting this in their movies)- STOP MAKING ZOMBIES JUST POP UP OUT OF NOWHERE. There's few constant traits for zombies in these films, but it's pretty easy to glean that some of those rules are as follows: 1. Zombies are slow, 2. Zombies are loud, 3. Zombies are dumb, and 4. Zombies are noticeable (once you know they exist). So when your trained group of zombie-hunting special forces army dudes are just standing around doing whatever, AND THEN SUDDENLY A ZOMBIE IS RIGHT THERE NEXT TO THEM, I'm going to call BS, and I'm going to do it even moreso when it happens MULTIPLE TIMES IN THE FILM. No, a zombie did not just sneak up on you in the middle of a well-lit room while multiple people were looking in different directions. It did not happen. I know that's what appeared on the screen, but the screen is wrong. It didn't happen.

I really wish I had more to say about this one, but I just. Didn't. Care. About. Anyone. I didn't care about the family dynamic of these rednecks on this backwoods island, I didn't care about the soldiers who apparently are just sooooooo horny they don't care who or what sees them touching themselves, I didn't care about a bunch of captive zombies that are both smart enough to operate a car but stupid enough to be completely stymied by a three-foot fence. Also, please either put more budget into your CGI, or use less CGI. And don't start your movie off with a stupid zombie pop-up AND really bad CGI in the first minute. Unless your intention was to get me to turn it off before the opening credits (which I almost did) you messed up.

Overall Rating: 2/10 Late-Night Talk Shows That Are Still On The Air And Have A Live Audience Despite The Breakdown Of Society

Best Actor Slumming It In This Role: Julian Richings, aka Death from Supernatural. I know you were probably hard up for money, but you're better than this!