Diary of the Dead - George A. Romero's fifth zombie film that involves a bus-load of college kids and their film teacher driving around to....give the film a plot I suppose. This is unconnected to the previous quadrilogy, a wise move considering Land of the Dead was pretty questionable in quality and kind of left nowhere to go. However the style chosen, a Blair Witch theme, does the film's thematic style no favors and probably one of the reasons it didn't merit a theatrical release in the US (Considering that Cloverfield mess also coming out in 2008).
The film starts out with some fairly whiny kids shooting a horror picture about mummies. An obvious nod to the infamous "running vs. walking undead" is made, and then the main kid named Jason, keeps filming after the end of the scene in his film, even before any mention of the undead is made. Then he never stops filming, even to defend himself. It's a small thing, but opens the floor for the question of "why keep filming?". The answer is "To let everyone know what happened". It's a pretty weak excuse because anyone within the film who DOES survive has probably got a good idea of what happened already. There's no point. My main point is that these Blair Witch knock-offs have to stop. They just aren't very scary. When I see Romero knocking off Blair Witch, things have gotten out of hand. It's like if Steven Spielberg started knocking off Michael Bay. In the span of a year and a half we've had three of these films, and it's too many. POV is fun, when done sparingly like The Descent. When it's the whole film it just makes no sense, and is nauseating on the big screen.
Romero is famous for his social commentary, but generally it used to play second or third fiddle to the zombies and the characters. Not this time. Romero is just hitting us over the head with issues left and right. Blogging, internet overcrowding, youtube and Hurricane Katrina are just some of the themes narrated languidly by the main girl Debra (Michelle Morgan) who sounds zoned out on Valium. Her really annoying boyfriend Jason (Joshua Close) is the main schlubb doomed to never have his face on camera. They are accompanied by a decent enough crew of red shirts who don't really get enough time to be full fledged characters. The worst (and mercifully shortest time on screen) performance is from Ridley (Philip Riccio). There is the memorable exception of the truly interesting character of Andrew Maxwell (Scott Wentworth), played by a London Theater and Broadway actor who deserves to be in better films than this. I do love my Brits in my zombie films. Wentworth has such a dry sometimes cheeky personae and many of the (admittedly few) best lines and moments.
Note to Romero: drama, societal issues, and cartoon violence don't go together well. You can't have it both ways. This is the third film I've seen make that mistake this year and the mishmash is just ridiculous. This was shot in 23 days so I'm going to assume it was pretty rushed in production. At least that's how it looks. Half the zombies have no physical signs of bites and the blood is way too brightly colored. Bottom line, a lot of the stuff looks fake. You'd think working under (count 'em) 5 production companies could buy a better movie. It does not. Oh Canada. Where would we get our zombies movies without you? Occasionally fun. Mostly ridiculous and eye-roll worthy. Romero, you haven't been able to do a halfway decent zombie film in 20 years. Leave the subgenre to the new kids and the runners. We don't go to zombie films for the social subtext. C.
The film starts out with some fairly whiny kids shooting a horror picture about mummies. An obvious nod to the infamous "running vs. walking undead" is made, and then the main kid named Jason, keeps filming after the end of the scene in his film, even before any mention of the undead is made. Then he never stops filming, even to defend himself. It's a small thing, but opens the floor for the question of "why keep filming?". The answer is "To let everyone know what happened". It's a pretty weak excuse because anyone within the film who DOES survive has probably got a good idea of what happened already. There's no point. My main point is that these Blair Witch knock-offs have to stop. They just aren't very scary. When I see Romero knocking off Blair Witch, things have gotten out of hand. It's like if Steven Spielberg started knocking off Michael Bay. In the span of a year and a half we've had three of these films, and it's too many. POV is fun, when done sparingly like The Descent. When it's the whole film it just makes no sense, and is nauseating on the big screen.
Romero is famous for his social commentary, but generally it used to play second or third fiddle to the zombies and the characters. Not this time. Romero is just hitting us over the head with issues left and right. Blogging, internet overcrowding, youtube and Hurricane Katrina are just some of the themes narrated languidly by the main girl Debra (Michelle Morgan) who sounds zoned out on Valium. Her really annoying boyfriend Jason (Joshua Close) is the main schlubb doomed to never have his face on camera. They are accompanied by a decent enough crew of red shirts who don't really get enough time to be full fledged characters. The worst (and mercifully shortest time on screen) performance is from Ridley (Philip Riccio). There is the memorable exception of the truly interesting character of Andrew Maxwell (Scott Wentworth), played by a London Theater and Broadway actor who deserves to be in better films than this. I do love my Brits in my zombie films. Wentworth has such a dry sometimes cheeky personae and many of the (admittedly few) best lines and moments.
Note to Romero: drama, societal issues, and cartoon violence don't go together well. You can't have it both ways. This is the third film I've seen make that mistake this year and the mishmash is just ridiculous. This was shot in 23 days so I'm going to assume it was pretty rushed in production. At least that's how it looks. Half the zombies have no physical signs of bites and the blood is way too brightly colored. Bottom line, a lot of the stuff looks fake. You'd think working under (count 'em) 5 production companies could buy a better movie. It does not. Oh Canada. Where would we get our zombies movies without you? Occasionally fun. Mostly ridiculous and eye-roll worthy. Romero, you haven't been able to do a halfway decent zombie film in 20 years. Leave the subgenre to the new kids and the runners. We don't go to zombie films for the social subtext. C.