Survival of the Dead

The sixth installment in George A. Romero’s long-running horror serial follows Sarge Crockett (Alan Van Sprang) as he leads his gone-rogue unit of National Guardsmen from the zombie-pestilent mainland to “Plum Island, Delaware.” There, the returned departed are feuded over by two family-armies led by Irish patriarchs. Once ashore the island, seemingly preserved in the 1880s, Romero piles on plotlines and Western tropes. Romero’s embrace of new technology includes silly CGI violence. The script reunites the writer-director’s familiar preoccupations with the family as hell, creeping Catholicism and stock rednecks. The inevitable all-you-can-eat orgy of zombies pulling stringy mouthfuls away from red, wet rib cages may satisfy gorehounds, but big set pieces show how atrophied Romero’s cutting and tactical framing have become.