Diary Of The Dead Review
Diary Of The Dead follows a group of college students who set out to shoot a horror movie for school. In the midst of their shoot, they hear the new report that the dead are returning to life and attacking the living. The director of the student film, Jason Creed, is a self-described documentarian who only decided to do a horror film for class credit. He decides to keep rolling, to document what’s happening, much to the chagrin of his companions, who are quite vociferous about their protests, yet one-by-one begin to see the importance of the process. Most of the group decide to stick together to try and make it back to their respective families in a old Winnebago. Along the journey they begin to see the effects of the zombie outbreak on society, the media and each other.
Diary Of The Dead is chock-full of digs at the media for not reporting the truth. It seems to have been made to inspire people to become the media in lieu of our current media’s inability to focus on truth and not be twisted by other influences. The overall message being to raise your voice and use the tools that are so readily available to the common person in an effort to help your fellow man.
The special effects were top-shelf, created by Greg Nicotero and Gaslight Studios, the team that worked on Land Of The Dead. Greg Nicotero also worked with Tom Savini on Day Of The Dead. The zombies looked awesome especially when they were dispatched in several new and unique ways. Romero movies will always lead the pack in respects to coming up with fresh ways to take out a zombie and Diary is no different.
There were a few performances by actors that left something to desired, but these were few and far between and didn’t effect my overall enjoyment of the movie. You have to expect that with any independent film. The core group of actors performed well.
All in all Diary Of The Dead is classic Romero and had everything that ever made me fall in love with the zombie genre of horror. If I had to rate it juxtaposed with his other movies, I’d put it right between Night Of the Living Dead and Dawn Of The Dead. It carried the seriousness of survival that was paramount in Night, yet had a broader social commentary. It had a sense of humor like Dawn, yet not as wacky, most of it’s humor was in the slapstick of the zombie kills.
I traveled over an hour to see this movie due to it’s limited release and I was not disappointed in the least. I’d recommend that fans of zombie films, should do nothing short of whatever is necessary to see this film.
My two cents:
Diary of the Dead is exactly the type of zombie I’d make for myself. It focuses heavily on the survivors and has just the right mix of zombie action and dark humor. Like Romero’s other films, it uses zombies to provide social commentary and Jef I think your comments regarding the media were spot-on. I also appreciated that it was “hip” to the myspace/youtube generation in a genuine way.
Oh yeah and it was actually scary! There are plenty of those “jump out of your seat” moments.
So many horror movies rely on one-dimensional stereotypes as characters but here every character acts, well, as real people. But in Diary, one character just decides to leave the group half-way through the movie. This would never happen in a normal movie - everything has to be over-explained. But here, she just decides, “enough of this, I’m outta here.”
I really hope it gets wider distribution so more people can see it.
::sigh:: I think the nearest place for me would be in Atlanta. I don’t think I’ll be able to talk my husband into going to Atlanta for just a movie. Does anyone have any idea when it will be coming out of dvd?
i was one of the lucky ones there was a movie theater 20 minutes away this movie was completely worth it and you really got to love the crazy Amish people
I haven’t been able to find any info on a release date for video. I would hope that it would at least be released by the end of summer. It would be smart to at least include it in the Halloween season.
The end of summer? ::sigh::
Well, maybe I CAN get my husband to take me to Atlanta. lol
I’m a huge Romero fan; however, I don’t think he’ll ever recapture his zombie genius from back in the day. Yes, I just came back from seeing this movie and I was “Land Of The Dead” disappointed! I feel extremely dupped……I wanted to love this film…….I tried, I really tried. As Diary of the Dead kept “slowly” moving along, I was nervously looking at my wife (who I begged to come along for the hour drive to Orlando to see this), and saw her reaction. Once the movie was over, I was like, “That’s it, that’s it?!” I looked over at the other 4 people in the theater (who were oddly enough, also wearing Dawn Of The Dead T-shirts) and we all just sighed with disappointment, gathered our stuff, and walked out in complete silence. Needless to say, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to like this movie.
Granted, Romero’s excuse for LOTD’s uber-crappiness was the constant nagging of the big studio (or was it his excuse they released it between Batman Begins and War of the Worlds). ROMERO HAS NO EXCUSE THIS TIME…….this movie was sooooooooo disappointingly boring! I now know how Star Wars fans felt with George Lucas’s Episodes 1-3. This movie, as with LOTD, is our “Phantom Menance”……I was expecting to see a Jar-Jar zombie pop up on the screen. This movie was Romero’s excuse to bitch about technology, blogging, and the internet (with an occasional zombie popping up here and there).
George, my brother…..stop worrying about “the message” and start putting out films like you used to….for the entertainment aspect, not the underlying social message. My advice to you true zombie fans….don’t waist your time driving to see this in a theater…..wait for the DVD (rental only!!)
I GIVE DIARY OF THE DEAD 2 out of 10! I know, I should just shut up and support the genre, but when a movie is made for it’s social commentary rather than it’s entertainment value, I am easily disappointed.
*For the record, I’m a huge zombie and Romero fan. I flew out to Vegas for the premiere and after party for LOTD, I have several versions of his original zombie masterpieaces, signed scripts to each movie, original movie posters, and I’ve met George dozens of times*
So piccaso what your telling us all is that you never really watched the other films. They have all been political these movies have never been about zombies they have always been about what was happening in the world when they where made. They have covered racism, millitary over population, corrupt government, poverty and many many other social ills. Romero has always addmitted that his films are more about the humans not the undead. Your insights though long winded prove only that you know nothing about what Romero has always tried to do. Its amazing that you can watch his films and see nothing but a horror film its politics plane and simple. You need to go back and rewatch night, dawn, and day, pay attention to the wording and who the hero and villans are open your eyes past the point of just seeing a horror film try to see what he is saying. I dont think that this was his best work but it was his biggest step away from his comfort zone and i respect that he didnt just make another structural seige film.
Bobby B…I tried to understand your post, but my head hurts.
Had I known I’d get an epileptic seizure on a keyboard for a response, I probably would have skipped posting my review.
Sorry you didn’t agree with it.
Undead Picasso -
I respect your opinion, but I’d be interested to hear what you didn’t like about it other than its slow pace. I’m not trying to start an argument, just curious about your thoughts.
Also don’t worry about “supporting the genre” - that’s not what it’s about. We accept all viewpoints here. :)
What’s up Erik…..the reason I didn’t go into details about why this film failed was I knew there were others who did not see it yet….however, since you’re curious:
***************SPOILERS***************
Obviously, the slow, boring, pace did not help; however, there were other elements that just stung. Here’s just a few of many:
1) Though I wasn’t expecting an Oscar performance from the actors, the acting was bad, very bad.
2) George Romero decided to give his buddy Boyd Banks a cameo, but threw him in with the Black Militia. Why would a Black Militia keep this old white guy around? They didn’t even explain why he was with them. It totally took away from the believability of that scene.
3) The lead female actor (who was supposed to be in college and looked like she was in her mid-30’s) threatens the head of the Black Militia by saying, “give us what we want or we’re staying with you” and that threat worked!?!?
4) The CGI was absolutely horrible (Sci-Fi channel horrible). Romero was quoted as saying, “it was much cheaper to digitally paint gun flashes and blood spatters than using the traditional squids or effects.” Yeah, it really showed.
5) The scene from the internet with the old couple and the “SWAT” team busting into the room (“NO, NOT THAT ROOM, NOT THAT ROOM”…..too familiar) was horribly thrown together…. I thought the main characters were watching a bad zombie movie on a Television, a little tongue and cheek from Romero maybe…..unfortunately, that wasn’t the case….it was actually a serious part of this movie!!
6) The characters Tony and Debra were so against Jason filming everything, they decided to pick up another character and help out?!!?
7) Oh, let’s not forget that “video blog” of the Clown Zombie at the kids birthday party!!! “hey kids, it’s a clown…..oh look, his nose fell off his face……” That clown scene was just the prelude and indicative of poorly done things to come.
***************SPOILERS OVER***************
I absolutely loved Romero’s first three zombie flicks (I was fortunate enough to see Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead in theaters when they were first released and shared a drink with Romero at the after party for LOTD in Vegas). I, like most at this site, wanted to love Diary of the Dead (anything to make us forget about Land of the Dead). It just fell short on so many levels. Instead of using his directing expertise to produce an entertaining zombie film (as he did with the original 3), he chose to create a film stressing his concerns about the media and internet.
The only priceless thing about this film was the look I and several other Romero fans gave each other as we left the theater. Disappointment was an understatement.
***#6 should have said: “The characters Tony and Debra were so against Jason filming everything, they decided to pick up another CAMERA and help out?!!?” (not character….sorry)