3/7/08: Chosen Survivors (1974)For those who’ve wondered, George Romero’s
Diary of the Dead is yet another bad zombie film from the former master. It also has the same moronic politics we got from Romero in 2005’s
Land of the Dead. At this point, the most conservative thing about Romero’s
Dead films is the multiple DVD repackagings of
Dawn of the Dead. Remember when that movie was an attack on consumer culture?
We also like how the supposed bad guy in the original
Night of the Living Dead ended up being right all along. That’s not worth an entry, but
Chosen Survivors rates a write-up. The movie opens with a small group of drugged people being sent into an underground bomb shelter. They’ll soon learn that they’re part of a secret government project where certain humans have been selected to survive a global thermonuclear war—just like the one currently turning the planet into a cinder.
They’re informed of this by a cheery woman on pre-recorded video. She’ll continue to appear, usually to offer New Agey bromides about how the survivors need to get in touch with their feelings. We’re then introduced to the cast by a voiceover from a survivor named Macomber. He’s played by Bradford Dillman as another New Agey type. Before the film is over, he’ll be sounding a lot like Dr. Hasslein in
Escape From The Planet of the Apes . (Dillman’s in that one, too.)
Macomber is mostly happy with how the survivors are adapting to life down under. There’s one lady on the brink of a breakdown, but Macomber’s more concerned about “corporate genius” Raymond Couzins—played by Jackie Cooper. Couzins is already looking for a way out of the shelter. He’s got no patience for the pre-recorded instructions about adjusting to his new surroundings. Couzins prefers confronting his complacent fellow captives.
Those fellow survivors don’t feel like captives. One of them—a novelist who’s always thought that men should be replaced by machines—believes that everyone’s now part of an exciting new world. Couzins thinks the novelist should’ve been replaced with a machine.
Heavy SPOILERS coming up, but that’s the only way to discuss the greatness of Raymond Couzins. He’ll turn out to be right about everything. Couzins suspects from the start that there was never a thermonuclear war. He’s proven right. Couzins gets drunk and yells at the resident Olympic athlete about how earning a gold medal is no big deal. The athlete will later admit that Couzins is right. Couzins remains drunk and forces himself upon a sexy female doctor. After some struggling, she gives in passionately.
It’s left to Macomber to admit that Couzins has been right all along. The whole thing is a military experiment. Macomber only admits this after vampire bats invade the shelter. A swarm of them kills the token Hispanic. He didn’t listen to Couzins’ warning.
Macomber can’t reach his military contacts, and the would-be survivors remain trapped with the vampire bats. Couzins offers the athlete $100,000 to scale an elevator shaft and open the shelter door. This will signal the military to come down for an evacuation. The athlete does the job, but loses his life to the bats. Nobody thanks Couzins for the financial outlay. Instead, he’s attacked by the athlete’s love interest.
She’ll end up being eaten by bats, too. She doesn’t stick close to Couzins. In a happy ending, though, Couzins gets to survive being a survivor. We were expecting him to end up like John Hoyt in
When Worlds Collide—but we’ll talk about that movie later. It’s bad enough that we’ve given away the ending of
Chosen Survivors.
Make it your own: It’s still a good idea to watch
Chosen Survivors. We haven’t mentioned a lot of fun touches, and the cast is excellent. It’s also packaged
on DVD with
The Earth Dies Screaming—which is another great movie. It seems that the same guy wrote both of them.
