On an island off the coast of North America, local residents simultaneously fight a zombie epidemic while hoping for a cure to return their un-dead relatives back to their human state.

We’ve now reached the final entry in the franchise and sadly the last film George A. Romero would direct.

Not only is this the last entry in the “Dead” franchise but this was also the least financially successful film in Romero’s series. This has always left me puzzled me as I felt this release was the closest we got to the much beloved original “Dead” trilogy.

There are a lot of fans felt this was Romero’s worst film of the series but I have to highly disagree, for me that was “Land Of The Dead”. I felt this film took everything back to basics and was more of what you’d expect from him and it was a great story too.

Romero wrote some fantastic characters with this release, they’re really enjoyable to watch and acted very well. His vision for this feature is very clear, he does toy with the zombie evolution formula again here but not so much that it’s off putting.

With this feature Romero still delivered fans with a solid and entertaining film that, in my opinion, still managed to blow away other zombie films of the time. He still proved he was the best at what he does and it’s sad it ended here.

Do me a favour and if you already haven’t already watched it then please be sure to give “Survival Of The Dead” a chance, it truly deserves more recognition.

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Miscellaneous facts about the film:

This film marks the first time that a character from a previous Living Dead film returns to star in a sequel, with Alan Van Sprang as Sarge “Nicotine” Crockett having been seen in Diary of the Dead (2007), and also playing Brubaker in Land of the Dead (2005). The only two other times this has come close to happening was Tom Savini reprising his role of Blades from Dawn of the Dead (1978) as a cameo in “Land of the Dead” in zombie form, and Joseph Pilato playing an unnamed police captain in “Dawn of the Dead” returning to play Captain Rhodes in Day of the Dead (1985).

This was the least successful film in George A. Romero’s Dead films series. On a budget of $4 million, it only made $100,000. Even the DVD sales were below expectations.

The first horror film to be nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival since 1932’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The cast are almost all Canadian, the exception being Julian Richings who is from London, England. The movie was shot entirely in Canada.

George A. Romero’s final directed film.

The Hearn Generating Station of Toronto’s Unwin Ave. (the coal-fired power plant seen in the background of a few scenes) was in one other zombie film, the television film Goosebumps: Welcome to Dead House.

In the scene where Sarge immolates the zombie with a flare and lights a cigarette from its flaming head, Sarge was initially going to hold the cigarette in his mouth and put his face up to the flames.

Inspired by William Wyler’s film The Big Country (1958).

The scene on the pier was shot in Port Dover, Ontario. The scene where the truck turns around on the highway is Highway #6 at the Petro-Gas station between Port Dover and Hamilton,Ontario

Kenneth Welsh based his Irish accent on an accent his friend had.

Throughout many of the scenes, the weather intervened. The scene in which Sarge confronts the hunters in the woods was filmed in different locations with the shots including the hunters filmed under a tarp because in their location it was raining. The moments where they speak were muted and re-dubbed because of the heavy rain tapping on the tarp above them.

This marks George A. Romero’s second time using the SCOPE format (2.35:1, 2.39:1, 2.4:1) for his Living Dead films. The first time was Land of the Dead (2005). The other Dead films were either shot in 1.33:1 (Night of the Living Dead (1968)) or 1.85:1 (Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985)).

The opening scene before the camera footage from “Diary of the Dead” was the last scene to be filmed in order to give the film a more energetic beginning.

According to the filmmaker’s commentary, the film went through 60-70 optional titles before “Survival of the Dead” was finally chosen.

Several of this film’s cast members have played characters in entries of the “Saw” series. Alan Van Sprang played Chris in Saw III (2006), Athena Karkanis played Agent Perez in Saw IV (2007) and Saw VI (2009), Julian Richings played “Vagrant” in Saw IV (2007), Devon Bostick played Brent in Saw VI (2009), and Dru Viergever later played Dan in Saw 3D (2010).

Two of this film’s cast members have previously been featured in entries of the “Cube” series. Julian Richings in Cube (1997) and Joshua Peace in Cube Zero (2004).