George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (1 Viewer)

[Michael Elliott]

How in the hell can anyone talk about DIARY since it's playing in 3 theaters? The good ol' Wine boys strike again. This fiasco is exactly why I'm not holding my breath on the Argento film and went the alternative route to see it.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Diary of the Dead (2008) :star::star:1/2 George Romero

The fifth film in Romero's living dead series borrows The Blair Witch Project's idea of hand held cameras. The film centers on a group of college students who are in the woods making a horror movie when they hear over the television that something is bringing the dead back to life. Fearing the world might be coming to an end, the students decide to document the events they're about to face. I'm a little split on what to think about this movie so a second viewing is going to be needed but my first thoughts walking out the theater was that I was disappointed. The film manages to have some classic scenes but overall I think Romero missed the boat. As to be expected, there's a lot of social commentary running throughout the film with most of it aimed at the media. Romero's preaching this time out is that the media is ruining the world with lies and the only ones to believe are the students who post online. Apparently online is where the truth is and this is something I agree with. The film spends most of the time looking at the students and not the zombies, which could have worked but I thought Romero's screenplay was rather disappointing here. The performances are decent at best but their characters really aren't ones we care about so this is another minus. What does work are the actual zombie attacks, which range from good to excellent. There's one sequence with an Amish man in his bar, which is classic Romero all the way. Romero also adds a nice touch of black humor in this sequence. The gore level is down but what's on display is very well done including one homage to a previous film in the series. I also liked the actual look of the zombies, which were more like the original Night of the Living Dead and not the ones seen in Land of the Dead. I know there's already a sequel in the works, which is suppose to either pick up where this one left off or tell the story from a different point of view. WIth that in mind, I see this film as a warm up to something bigger and perhaps, like the Kill Bill movies, this will work better with the next film. I'd still rank this one higher than Day of the Dead but it's still a disappointment.

 

[Bryan^H]

I watched it last week. Very good movie.

The hospital scene is probably one of the best parts of any zombie movie I have ever seen. Very, very creepy.

 

[DavidPla]

Just saw the film. Terrible. Just terrible. The acting and the characters especially. I know that Land of the Dead gets some criticism but it's a masterpiece compared to this. I don't even know how this film warranted a theatrical release let alone an upcoming sequel. Romero is so much better than this. Can I just say how terrible the acting is again.

If there was one good point.. I'll give it to the Amish guy.

 

[Bryan^H]

Most of the time I felt like I was watching a real student documentary about a zombie take over, and strangely enough I think that's what Romero wanted us to feel. There were some pretty good scares with lots of suspense. Diary of the Dead may not have been very pleasing to the eye, but I still give it a thumbs up

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I must say that agree with this except for the Romero being better than this part, he used to be better.

It's becoming obvious to me that Romero is turning into a hack of himself, his fame for making these films is going to his head and he's going off the deep end by making film after film centering on any idea he can think of and it's starting to become pretentious. The man is getting so far into himself that his talent is getting muddied in self-ass kissing.

The first problem I had, and I knew I would have a problem with this when I first heard the premise months ago, is the fact that we're watching the beginning of the zombie plague all over again...why? He already did that with Night did he not?

The second, and I couldn't get past this because George wouldn't let me, was all the high tech babble, every two minutes the words 'internet', 'streaming video', 'blog' and 'upload' were thrown in my face...okay, George, we get it, your making a MODERN dead film. Enough.

The slippery slope began with Land and even though I liked that one, besides 'Big Daddy' (HATE that sum bitch and all he stands for!!) and that bullshit "they're just looking for a place to go, like us" high road that Romero took as if zombies have any right to exist, and has worsened with this. In my opinion George has run out of things to say and do with this series and he's just making up anything as he goes along now.

I don't know, I think i'm just getting fed up with Romero and his love of zombies over the humans in his stories, I mean why can't WE win for once, George?! Human beings may be fucked up as a whole but they ARE worth saving, despite the last line uttered by Deb (cynical bitch) in the film. I'm finding his message increasingly offensive and the funny thing is that didn't begin until I saw Land when I came to the realization that this man is actually trying to convince me that we are worthless and that we should turn our planet over to the undead and that somehow we are the villains and they are the helpless species trying to survive.

People thought that Hud was annoying in Cloverfield but he's nothing compared to the kid running the camera in this, I didn't care about any of these kids which is the third major problem I had with this one.

Forth problem was the use of the hand held camera approach, yes I know that this film was completed before Cloverfield but that means nothing to me, the fact remains that Cloverfield beat George to the punch and it seemed played out in this, perhaps if he had waited another 2 years to release this it wouldn't have bothered me as much.

Although I must say the zombie who got the acid on his head and it slowly eats a gaping hole in his head was pretty cool and so was the hospital scene, very atmospheric I will admit.