George A. Romero has made a career out of zombie movies, starting all the way back in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead. His latest offering, the upcoming Survival of the Dead, makes perfectly clear that it’s time for Romero to lay this sub-genre to rest. His film is, quite frankly, as brain-dead as the zombies in it. Off the coast of Delaware, we find the once-lovely Plum Island, now overrun with zombies. We also find the O’Flynns and the Muldoons, two warring families with two solutions to the zombie problem. The O’Flynns shoot to kill, while the Muldoons believe that the undead must be kept alive in case a cure is discovered. A group of renegade soldiers, trying to survive, make their way to the island and have to deal with not only zombies, but the warring Irish clans as well. The plot described above is as bare as it sounds. Romero likes to insert social criticism into his films, this time choosing to focus on the problem of people in vegetative states. Such a difficult political and personal issue deserves thoughtful consideration. Why George Romero thought this movie, in which every character is a dopey stereotype or caricature, was the proper forum to say something meaningful is beyond me. Misplaced social commentary aside, the biggest reason Survival fails is the fact that it just ain’t scary. Romero, through a series of inexplicable decisions, manages to dispel all tension from a movie in which everyone runs the risk of being eaten alive. First, the zombies are disappointingly easy to kill: a simple shot to the forehead does it. A character only gets in trouble when they don’t have a gun or decides to be an idiot. When it comes time to shoot a zombie in the face, everyone in the movie can put a pro marksman to shame. And yet, when it comes time to shoot a human, no one can hit the side of a barn. The worst part is that these criticisms don’t really matter, because it’s hard to care about the characters. To say that the zombies are no more one-dimensional than the humans is not hyperbole. George A. Romero needs a new game. If there exists a zombie cow, he’s milked it dry. The movie isn’t tortuous, at a brisk 90 minutes. But that’s about the nicest thing I can say about it.

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