Introduction: The Old Man and the Undead
If George A. Romero’s zombie films are a buffet of apocalypse, Survival of the Dead is the dessert course—a little uneven, a little too sweet, but damned if it doesn’t still taste like the end of the world. Released in 2009, this sixth and final entry in Romero’s Dead saga finds the legendary director playing in his favorite sandbox one last time—except now the sandbox is off the coast of Delaware and full of Irish people arguing about farm animals.
It’s the kind of movie that only Romero could have made. It’s violent, political, and strangely funny, a tale about tradition, stubbornness, and how even at the end of civilization, humanity will still find time to have a family feud.
And while critics dismissed it faster than a zombie with bad aim, Survival of the Dead is a surprisingly charming, darkly comic sendoff from the godfather of gore. It’s proof that even when Romero was running on fumes, his fumes were still pure gasoline.
Plot: The Walking Dead Meet the Fighting Irish
Our story opens, as all good ones do, with desertion, robbery, and light cannibalism. Sergeant “Nicotine” Crockett (Alan van Sprang) and his ragtag band of National Guard survivors—Tomboy, Francisco, Kenny, and the perpetually confused Boy—have gone AWOL after the events of Diary of the Dead. Having robbed the previous film’s protagonists (in one of cinema’s most awkward handoffs), they’re now looking for a place to survive—or at least find someone who can cook.
Enter Plum Island: a remote slice of Irish Americana floating off Delaware, where two warring families, the O’Flynns and the Muldoons, have turned the apocalypse into an episode of The Jerry Springer Show.
Patrick O’Flynn (Kenneth Welsh) believes in putting the dead down for good—“one in the head, no exceptions.” Seamus Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick), on the other hand, insists that zombies are just “a little under the weather” and keeps them chained up like drooling relatives waiting for a miracle cure.
Naturally, this philosophical divide leads to gunfire, accusations of murder, and one of the most awkward family dinners in horror history. Patrick is exiled, swearing vengeance, and ends up running a con on the mainland—luring desperate survivors to the island to mess with the Muldoons out of sheer spite. It’s the pettiest apocalypse imaginable, and it’s glorious.
When Crockett’s crew stumbles across Patrick’s bait video promising sanctuary, they take the bait, hijack a ferry, and head to Plum Island. Along the way, Patrick loses most of his men, gains a new set of traveling companions, and delivers enough Irish proverbs to fill an entire St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Once on the island, everything predictably goes to hell. Zombies wander around dressed like farmers reenacting The Quiet Man, family members shoot each other for sport, and somewhere amid the chaos, a horse gets bitten by a zombie and becomes a symbol for peace—or lunch.
It all culminates in a final standoff between Patrick and Seamus, two men so stubborn that even death can’t stop them from hating each other. The film ends with their reanimated corpses still trying to shoot one another—guns empty, souls gone, pride intact. It’s Shakespearean, if Shakespeare wrote for the Syfy Channel.
Themes: Where the Dead Stand In for Every Family Argument Ever
Romero was never subtle, and that’s why we loved him. Here, his zombies aren’t just rotting corpses—they’re metaphors for history, ignorance, and humanity’s inability to let anything die gracefully.
Plum Island is America in miniature: two clans so obsessed with being right that they’d rather drown in blood than compromise. The O’Flynns cling to old-world fatalism, the Muldoons to religious delusion, and the rest of the cast just wants to get through a day without being eaten or lectured about morality.
In true Romero fashion, the real monsters aren’t the undead—they’re the people arguing about what to do with them. And by the time the credits roll, you realize that Survival of the Dead isn’t about who’s right—it’s about how nobody learns anything, even after civilization collapses.
It’s bleak, it’s funny, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from a director who spent forty years watching humanity trip over its own entrails.
Characters: The Good, the Bad, and the Biting
Alan van Sprang’s Crockett is a solid anchor—a cynical soldier who’s seen too much, robbed too many people, and still somehow keeps his conscience buried under all that camouflage. He’s basically the world’s grumpiest babysitter, trying to keep his team alive while everyone around him engages in Irish melodrama.
Kenneth Welsh, as Patrick O’Flynn, is a delight. He chews scenery like it’s a pint of Guinness and delivers every line with the gusto of a man who believes he’s in Gangs of New York. His feud with Seamus Muldoon is half horror, half comedy sketch, and entirely too entertaining for a film about the end of the world.
Kathleen Munroe deserves special mention for pulling double duty as Janet and Jane, the island’s twin daughters of tragedy. One’s alive, one’s undead, and both manage to make the apocalypse look like a Wuthering Heights cosplay.
And then there’s the supporting cast—the loyal but doomed sidekicks who exist mainly to get eaten, shot, or wax philosophical before dying. Francisco’s “bitten-finger” subplot is as ridiculous as it is grimly funny. Tomboy (Athena Karkanis) provides a much-needed dose of competence and sardonic wit, proving that if the world’s ending, you might as well go out sarcastic.
Tone and Style: A Western in Zombie Clothing
Where earlier Dead films were claustrophobic nightmares (Night, Dawn), Survival opens up like a John Ford Western—with gunslingers, horses, and sweeping landscapes. It’s Romero’s weirdest genre mash-up: part Deadwood, part Shaun of the Dead, and part existential crisis.
The cinematography trades grimy realism for clean digital gloss, which gives everything a surreal, comic-book look. The CGI blood sometimes looks like it was borrowed from a PlayStation 2 cutscene, but honestly, it adds to the charm.
Romero’s direction has mellowed with age; the jump scares are fewer, the humor sharper, and the politics more wry. He’s less interested in shocking us and more in winking at us—as if saying, “You know the world’s screwed, right? Might as well laugh while it rots.”
Why It Works (Even When It Shouldn’t)
Yes, the movie’s uneven. Yes, the dialogue occasionally sounds like it was translated from Gaelic by Google. But there’s a sincerity to Survival of the Dead that makes it hard to hate.
Romero was a director who genuinely cared about his zombies—and what they said about us. Even here, in his final film, you can feel that affection. The humor’s dark, the blood’s red, and the message is unmistakable: people are idiots, but idiots worth watching.
It’s not the terrifying masterpiece of Night of the Living Dead or the anarchic brilliance of Dawn, but it’s the cinematic equivalent of grandpa telling one last ghost story—rambling, messy, but full of heart.
Legacy: Romero’s Final Lurch into the Sunset
Survival of the Dead wasn’t a hit. Critics called it tired, fans called it silly, and the box office called it a day. But in hindsight, it feels like the perfect final chapter for Romero’s career.
He began by trapping us in a farmhouse with the dead and ended by setting us free on an island full of them. It’s his most absurd, most self-aware film—a reminder that no matter how far we run, the dead (and our own stupidity) always catch up.
Watching it now feels like a farewell toast from a master who knew the genre had outlived him—and was fine with it.
Final Thoughts: The Dead Still Walk, and So Does Romero’s Genius
Survival of the Dead may not reinvent the zombie wheel, but it gives it one last glorious spin through madness, metaphor, and mayhem. It’s goofy, gory, and filled with enough Irish guilt to fuel a thousand Catholic nightmares.
Romero left us laughing in the dark, his shambling creations still fighting, feuding, and falling apart—just like the rest of us.
So here’s to George A. Romero: the man who made zombies human, and humans just barely better.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Feuding Corpses
A flawed but fitting farewell—bloody, funny, and too stubborn to die. In other words, pure Romero.
