Forty years after Night of the Living Dead changed horror cinema forever, George A. Romero is still viewing the madness of American living through undead eyes – Survival of the Dead just premiered at the Venice Film Festival. We don’t need an excuse to celebrate the third Dead picture, from 1985, described by George A. as a ‘tragedy about how a lack of human communication causes chaos and collapse, even in this small little pie slice of society’ – that said, we’ll be joined for the screening by Joe Pilato, who portrays psychopathic U.S. military officer Captain Rhodes. Day of the Dead remains sorely underrated; last minute budgetary issues meant that Romero had to truncate his initial epic vision for the project, resulting in a pared-down portrait of humanity studying the zombie apocalypse from the (supposedly) safe haven of an underground military establishment. It’s a buttoned-down masterpiece – and how can you pass on the chance to meet the man who enjoys the greatest demise in any Romero zombie flick? All together, now: ‘Choke on ’em…’