Diary of the Dead
George A. Romero returns to the beginning of his Dead Series with this tale of young filmmakers making a horror movie in the woods as the outbreak occurs and the world finds itself infested with zombies. Much like his early works the film is equal parts horror flick and social commentary. Here the roles and actions of news channels, broadcasting, reality television, the government, and other institutions and individuals all become fuel to the filmmaker to set ablaze in satire.Although the film doesn’t really add much to the series it does, in the tone of the previous films, present a decidedly somber and fatalistic view of the world absent in most Hollywood films. Much like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield the film uses the handheld shaky cam for most of the action; although unlike these other films it doesn’t rely on the shaky cam solely and spends time on both character and plot as well.
There’s nothing too remarkable about the cast other than Michelle Morgan‘s eerie resemblance, in both look and attitude, to many of the characters played by Eliza Dushku. Everyone else is monster food and only a prop or piece of the background used to tell the tale so I won’t spend much time discussing the acting or characters of the film.
Fans of horror may also get a kick out of some of the voices used throughout the film as various news reporters which include a who’s who of the genre like Wes Craven, Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro and a also the likes of Simon Pegg and Quentin Tarantino.
Diary of the Dead is a pretty good horror film. Personally I could have used a little less shaky cam, but at least the film isn’t entirely shot in this manner with clever uses of other types of footage spliced into Jason’s (Joshua Close) movie. The low-tech look and indie feel of the film do help to add some style. I don’t know that it will scare you, but it least it has something to say which is more than most horror flicks these days.
