The Movie
Picking up post-Diary of the Dead, Survival of the Dead now marks George Romero's sixth entry into his growing zombie feature film franchise. In the current continuity, the dead have only recently begun to walk the Earth again, humankind hasn't quite figured out why, but they are dividing themselves into paranoid factions. On remote Plum Island (the same one that Clarice Starling offers to send Hannibal Lecter to in The Silence of the Lambs...?), The Muldoons and The O'Flynns are locked in a bitter feud over how to handle the Deadites. Should they be exterminated, or can they possibly be saved? A rogue National Guard squadron and a hip, dangerous teenager wander into the middle of it all, which is sort of like ringing the zombie dinner bell....
The Picture
Survival was shot on the Red One digital video camera and has that not-quite-film look to it, with a harshness in the brights and some slight motion streaking. The 2.35:1 image is noisy, particularly in shadowy backgrounds but elsewhere too, with ringing in would-be soft glows. The digital special effects for the more creative zombie exterminations tend to reveal themselves in HD, and seem incongruous with the old-school blood and guts of the movie. The autumnal palette however is quite lovely.
The Sound
George Romero must know every trick for making a low budget seem higher, and this DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 channel mix certainly helps. He'll put a helicopter in the rears to establish military action, without our ever seeing it. The aggressive addition of birds, insects other generous environmental sounds aids in the creation of a credible three-dimensional world. There's pleasing detail in the shattering of glass, and a thrilling directionality to the many gunshots, with a couple of fine explosions thrown in there, too.
The Extras
Romero's one-and-a-half minute video introduction to the movie is quite funny, and we can spend more time with him, executive producer Peter Grunwald, executive producer/film editor Michael Doherty, actor Kenneth Welsh and actor/second unit director/stunt coordinator Matt Birman on their shared audio commentary. "Walking After Midnight" is a feature-length fly-on-the-wall "making of," all the way though to the premiere and beyond.
"A Minute of Your Time" gathers 13 brief video odds-and-ends, some more serious than others, about 20 minutes total. "Time with George" goes one-on-one with the writer/director, for nine minutes. He pops up again in the "How to Create Your Own Zombie Bite" episode of a TV show about making movies cheaply (ten minutes). "Storyboard Comparison: Heads on Stakes" includes a picture-in-picture segment that illustrates the undertaking of one of the creepier and more ambitious sequences, about two minutes.
"Sarge" is a short film which ties into the main movie. And "HDNet: A Look at Survival of the Dead" (four-and-a-half minutes), is really just a longer version of the introduction, intercut with movie clips. All of the video extras are in high definition except the Fangoria interview with George A. Romero, presented in a low-bitrate AVC akin to SD, about 23 minutes. The disc also supports BD-Live.
Final Thoughts
The ending of Survival of the Dead is a bit of a downer, vaguely reminiscent of the original Night of the Living Dead, but blended with a dash of hope while handily setting up another possible sequel. Hey, as long as George Romero is able to keep production costs down (which kinda shows on this Blu-ray) and continue cranking out these zombie tales, my interest in the undead will never die.
Product Details
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