World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries is set in England & start in Hertfordshire in a military base as a squad of soldiers survive the zombie outbreak spreading throughout the country. After the gates are left open(!) by mistake(!?!) the flesh eating living dead infest the barracks & many soldiers, doctors & civilians are killed as it quickly becomes an every man for himself situation. Captain Maddox (Philip Brodie), a female civilian named Leeann (Alix Wilton Regan) along with three soldiers Kayne (Vicky Aracio), Carter (Okorie Chukwu) & Jonsey (Rob Oldfield) manage to escape the carnage in an army van with a few bare supplies. They all agree to travel to the coast & try to leave England on boats for Rotterdam before the entire country has nuclear bombs dropped on it. With hordes of flesh eating zombies & lawless gangs roaming around they won't have an easy journey & even if they do make it to the pick-up point what will they find?
This British production was directed by Michael Bartlett & Kevin Gates who also wrote the script, a direct sequel to The Zombie Diaries which was also directed by Bartlett & Gates this is at least slightly better but not by much & I still can't say I particularly liked it. The whole film is put together like a documentary, caught on the spot by a camcorder spur of the moment sort of thing so World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries doesn't flow like a normal linear film with huge chunks feeling like they are missing & an almost fly on the wall approach that I just don't really like. Comparisions to such horror films like The Blair Witch Project (1999), Rec (2007), Diary of the Dead (2007) & Paranormal Activity (2007) are inevitable & not entirely unjustified as the shaky annoying look & feel of those films are more than represented here. The basic story is simple, a group of living survivors running low on ammunition & supplies have to get from 'A' to 'B' without being eaten alive alive by zombies, it's a simple story that is stretched out over it's 85 minute duration with the usual arguments & such along with an encounter with a vicious group of human survivors who like to torture people & rape women in a scene that is really quite unpleasant to watch & seems out of place in an otherwise largely straight forward fantasy horror. The ending ditches the first person camcorder perspective for the last few minutes which offers up a very bleak & dark ending. In fact the whole film is quite dark & depressing, people doing nasty things to each other, people being killed & eaten & there's a real lack of hope or humour anywhere in World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries.
Now I usually hate the shaky hand-held camcorder style, the sort of film which is filmed in green tinted night visions, the sort of film where the camera never stops moving & shaking, the sort of film where the editing is awkward & we jump from one shot to another & back again, the sort of film where we get shots of the ground shaking as the cameraman runs or a shot of a wall or something that stops the film dead & irritates me. Having said that some of the shaky camcorder footage here in World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries works quite well, some of the zombie attack scenes benefit from zombies suddenly appearing in frame or out of the darkness but it's just all the other times that this sort of style is just plain annoying. There's a bit of gore, there's some gory gunshot wounds & a bit of flesh eating but nothing excessive. There's a bit of nudity during an unpleasant rape sequence that probably wasn't necessary.
The IMDb says this had a budget of about $1,500,000 which seems like quite a lot, I can't really see where they would need all that money but then I have never made a film so I don't know how much things cost. Filmed in Surrey, Hertfordshie & Suffolk here in the UK. The acting is alright but nothing special, I can't say I recognise anyone involved in this.
World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries has one or two effective moments & it manages to generate an isolated & claustrophobic feel at times but the ever annoying shaky camcorder style kills it dead & the simplistic story doesn't help either. For zombie fans only.
This British production was directed by Michael Bartlett & Kevin Gates who also wrote the script, a direct sequel to The Zombie Diaries which was also directed by Bartlett & Gates this is at least slightly better but not by much & I still can't say I particularly liked it. The whole film is put together like a documentary, caught on the spot by a camcorder spur of the moment sort of thing so World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries doesn't flow like a normal linear film with huge chunks feeling like they are missing & an almost fly on the wall approach that I just don't really like. Comparisions to such horror films like The Blair Witch Project (1999), Rec (2007), Diary of the Dead (2007) & Paranormal Activity (2007) are inevitable & not entirely unjustified as the shaky annoying look & feel of those films are more than represented here. The basic story is simple, a group of living survivors running low on ammunition & supplies have to get from 'A' to 'B' without being eaten alive alive by zombies, it's a simple story that is stretched out over it's 85 minute duration with the usual arguments & such along with an encounter with a vicious group of human survivors who like to torture people & rape women in a scene that is really quite unpleasant to watch & seems out of place in an otherwise largely straight forward fantasy horror. The ending ditches the first person camcorder perspective for the last few minutes which offers up a very bleak & dark ending. In fact the whole film is quite dark & depressing, people doing nasty things to each other, people being killed & eaten & there's a real lack of hope or humour anywhere in World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries.
Now I usually hate the shaky hand-held camcorder style, the sort of film which is filmed in green tinted night visions, the sort of film where the camera never stops moving & shaking, the sort of film where the editing is awkward & we jump from one shot to another & back again, the sort of film where we get shots of the ground shaking as the cameraman runs or a shot of a wall or something that stops the film dead & irritates me. Having said that some of the shaky camcorder footage here in World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries works quite well, some of the zombie attack scenes benefit from zombies suddenly appearing in frame or out of the darkness but it's just all the other times that this sort of style is just plain annoying. There's a bit of gore, there's some gory gunshot wounds & a bit of flesh eating but nothing excessive. There's a bit of nudity during an unpleasant rape sequence that probably wasn't necessary.
The IMDb says this had a budget of about $1,500,000 which seems like quite a lot, I can't really see where they would need all that money but then I have never made a film so I don't know how much things cost. Filmed in Surrey, Hertfordshie & Suffolk here in the UK. The acting is alright but nothing special, I can't say I recognise anyone involved in this.
World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries has one or two effective moments & it manages to generate an isolated & claustrophobic feel at times but the ever annoying shaky camcorder style kills it dead & the simplistic story doesn't help either. For zombie fans only.