Diary of the Dead (2007) Reviews

• Romero embraces the Youtube age……and its' short attention span

  motsivad2008-05-10

  Diary Of The Dead is a film in which George A. Romero tackles the digital age, and the information barrage that it brings us. Rolling news, Youtube, Podcasts, Myspace are the media of choice for an era where information is global, instant and 24/7. It is in this climate that the 'Dead' franchise gets the Blair Witch Project. We follow a group of young film students who find themselves having to band together after the dead start returning to life. Seeing the magnitude of the event a few of the troupe take it upon themselves to record a document of their plight for survival. It is this 'life through a lens' that gives us Diary Of The Dead. To expand on the cataclysmic events Romero uses footage from news channels, video blogs and web cams. The accessibility of the Internet mirrors the wildfire decline of humanity as the zombies take over and society collapses. However if there is one thing that defines this Internet era, it is short attention spans. Sadly this pandering to the Youtube generation is what seems to sum up 'Diary'. The strength behind the previous 'Dead' movies was that the survivors were stationary and holed up (whether it be in a shopping mall or bunker). As such it was the banality of their existence that became even more unnerving than the zombie threat. In 'Diary' the action is kinetic and the editing very fast-paced, as if Romero is keen to hold the short attention span of a young audience that now lives off 1 minute video clips, and skim-read 'Wikipedia' articles. As such the characters never stay in the same place for more than 5 minutes, as the scene hopping goes into overdrive. I'm sad to say that 'Diary' smacks of compromise. Romero inserts his typical biting social commentary, but it's often blunted by a desire to make the film palatable enough to younger generations and audiences. Trying to make reflective points about humanity when they're delivered by identikit good-looking young actors (who look more suited to being in 'The O.C') feels akin to having 'Hamlet' read out by Lindsay Lohan. Also Romero's hand seems forced to add the checklist of 'teen' horror clichés. 'Gross Out' deaths- Check Ditzy Blonde Girl- Check Older 'world weary' authority figure- Check (The professor) Zombie jumping out from side of frame- Check Big scary mansion finale- Check Despite its' flaws, 'Diary Of The Dead' is worth seeing simply for the glimmerings of Romero's post 9/11 views. Ironically, it is modern culture that not only embraces 'Diary' but also forces Romero to dumb down. 'Diary' is a flawed, experimental film from Romero, however a flawed Romero is far more challenging and interesting than 99% of the competition. An honorable 'miss' of a film that sees the master of zombie movies bound by the requirements of commercial success.

• oh dear

  Painbow2008-07-12

  I have always admired the films of Romero and there can be no doubt that he is the godfather of zombie films. Alas, i think he should have finished his zombie career with day of the dead. Land of the dead certainly wasn't a bad film and this is far from the worst i've ever seen but the step down is none the less noticeable. The modern cinematic world owes a lot to Romero but it's clear that the modern cinematic world has moved on from him. Lets start with the main problems(and ignore the million little ones):- 1. An idiot who keeps filming even when he or his friends are in danger (at no point does the brilliant idea of putting the camera down occur to him) 2. A narrator that appears to have edited the film so that it looks polished and yet who chooses to leave in the moments when the camera goes off or turns black 3. A narrator (and editor) who thinks incidental music should be added for tension (imagine those who filmed 9/11 doing the same and you will arrive at the same tasteless nature of this) 4. A narrator (and editor) who wishes for us to witness her rotting corpse family attack her (journalists may pretend to put journalistic integrity before emotional involvement but this is perverse) 5. An allegory for the war in Iraq (we aren't being given the full information etc) that needs to be endlessly repeated. 6. The notion that they needed to film everything to show the world the truth (like walking zombies wouldn't do it for most people) 7. Romero getting the opportunity to remind everyone that he thinks zombies should be slow (and reminding us again and again) This isn't an absolutely awful film by any stretch but in relation to the history and reputation of Romero, it is alas.....somewhat of an embarrassment

• Has Romero sunk so low?

  pyx2008-07-08

  What is it with the classic directors; Spielberg, Carpenter, and now Romero, that they seem to produce such abysmal drivel as they get older? Dennis Leary once joked that Elvis should have been killed young so that people only remembered him at his best. If that was true, then Romero should have joined him before this dross was made. Like reality TV, these stupid home movie within a movie offerings are popular at the moment, probably because they're cheap to make. Blair Witch has a lot to answer for. If Cloverfield left you cold, this movie will give you rigor mortis, with its aimless plot, its set-piece action, and its massively, completely unimaginative, by the numbers encounters. To say that the basic premise of this film is ridiculous, is a huge understatement - and I'm not talking about the zombies either! Even if you accept that the film is set in a world where zombies can exist, I simply refuse to accept that anyone would tolerate the lead character constantly filming instead of helping his friends to survive. In the real world, I think it would be a dead cert that one of his friends would either have fed him to a zombie, or at very least, smashed the hell out of his camera to re-engage him with the real world. This is script writing at its laziest and least convincing.

• Not Romero's Finest Hour!!!

  andell2008-02-24

  Sometimes, user comments on IMDb can be misleading! One comment recently suggested that this film is Romero returning to his roots, and suggested that this film ranks up there with the best of his 'dead' films. Respectfully, I disagree...very, VERY MUCH! For those not familiar, the Dead trilogy went like this: 1- Night of the Living Dead: the dead return to life and terrorize the panicked individuals who have taken refuge in a rural home. 2- Dawn of the Dead: Romero's BEST, for those who don't know it; when society finds itself unable to contain the dead's movements, a small group hole up in a mall and find a small utopia in the commercial appeal after society's downfall. 3- Day of the Dead: Government, mostly at the prodding of the military forces, take refuge on Islands off the coast of the US, trying to find either an answer to take back the world (the military approach), or to live with the 'dead' (the scientific approach). 4- Land of the Dead: Society breaks down into colonies controlled by those who have the wealth and power to command military like forces and both the dead and the poor are subjected to abuse in these colonial like establishments. As you can see, there was a progress to Romero's films- political commentary definitely was loaded in the films. For some reason however, Romero decided to make this film, which in a nut shell, is about a group of students who, while making a cheesy monster movie, find themselves in the middle of chaos and decide to document it. A la "The Blair Witch Project" (which is far superior!) and "Cloverfield." One by one, most of the students are dispatched as they make their way across Pennsylvania in search of their families- though if you sit through the first five minutes of the film, the narrative tells you: a) the film is already over; and b) an effort to edit it in order to emphasize its fear factor has been made to 'wake you up.' The latter part is rather peculiar given that the film maker goes as far as to watch his friends being attacked by the dead, without helping them, in order to capture exactly what happened. Does that seem parasitic? What is perhaps even more sickening is that the 'film maker' seems more concerned with 'hits' his video gets online than the well being of his friends, or that after he falls victim to an attacker, he's essentially regarded as a noble hero by one of the survivors. I really didn't like this film, although it was clear that the crowds at the theater did enjoy some of the originality of the gore (in one scene, one of the dead is shocked with an EMP machine in a hospital, causing their eyes to explode, but not killing them). My advice: if you are tired of seeing shills that try to find the same pulse that the Blair Witch Project successfully exploited, or if you want to retain an idea that Romero's dead trilogy stands as a firm example of positive movie making, avoid this dud!

• Romero is officially in his old age

  yogsottoth2008-06-28

  **Nothing in my comment will spoiler the movie more than it already was but still if you have issues with spoilers don't read the last paragraph** Let me start by saying Romero is one of my favorite horror film makers since he gave me such a fright with his Dead trilogy when I was a kid, especially with Dawn of the Dead that I was unable to sleep without my dad keeping watch for months (poor guy). No one, I mean no one, ever frightened me like that again. Therefore I will always love and respect him, no matter what. But the truth be told, Diary of the Dead is such a lame and amateurish film that Land of the Dead which I didn't like very much, looks like a masterpiece compared to this. You know the story, a couple of unlikable characters who are making a horror movie in the woods realize that there's an actual break-out going on in the world and they set off to find their families (more like to find one person's family in the group) and decide to film the whole thing while they're at it. And that's it... That's the whole story. The rest is a sad portrait of Romero trying to fill in the blanks between his fantasy zombie-killing methods which are absolutely lame and stretched like shocking a zombie with a defibrillator, or breaking a bottle of strong acid on a zombie's head and while you don't even hurt a finger the zombie's skull melts in seconds. And don't even get me started on that stretched-as-hell clown zombie scene. It's so obvious that Romero only focused on realizing his fantasies and ideas he's been accumulating for years that he didn't give a flying f*** what the movie looked like. However, Romero uses this lack-of-a-story aspect wisely and fills the whole vast space with his "and the message of this movie ladies and gentlemen..." card. It makes me really sad to think that he used to deliver these rightful messages quite subtle back in his day but now he simply blabbers trying to attack a different aspect of society this time: The Mass Media. He also makes use of the internet, the blogs and mobile phones as well as anything that records, probably in order to catch the attention of the youth audience. However, he's not only clearly displaying his absolute lack-of-info on all this technology but he also fails with delivering his "Media is bad" message. All through the movie everyone is talking about "finding the truth the media hides" and they go as far as to make a movie to tell everyone this "truth" which is: "the zombies are real". This point of the movie was so absurd that I was shocked anyone could write such a senseless script let alone our beloved Romero. All our characters first hears the news from the radio, every section of the media repeatedly reports that "dead returning to life" which is quite a bold statement enough already for the first day but still, there's this whole "media is hiding the truth and we should uncover it" thing strained throughout the movie that it makes you want to scream "What's there to hide?! Everyone is dead already!" Also, exactly why our characters make a documentary and which survivor would waste their time watching something they've already been through is unclear. There are so many holes with this whole internet and documentary angle that I won't go any further. Finally, lovable characters we are used to seeing in Romero's movies whom you root for, are gone. We have the cliché all-star team of slasher movies. None of them are believable or likable. Just check out the "hilarious" joke one of them makes upon seeing their very first zombie. Or the incredibly fast emotional recovery of the blonde girl who has just lost her boyfriend. The super-brave lead actress who don't think twice before frying a zombie in her first actual close-up encounter. How about the lead guy who never drops his camera like it's super-glued to his hands (This is the biggest, the most striking negative the movie has). And the wise professor who keeps on delivering poetic lines while you keep asking "What the hell is this guy doing here and what's with that hilarious set of bow and arrows?" There are so many more things to say but I'll let you enjoy determining those on your own since there are plenty. All in all, we friggin love you Romero, but this movie completely and utterly sucks.