Director: George A. Romero
Starring: Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Shawn Roberts, Amy Ciupak Lalonde
Tagline: "Shoot the dead."
Random Trivia: In the hospital scene, the voice from the radio telling people to aim for the head is Tom Savini; the audio was actually recorded during the Dawn of the Dead remake. Stephen King, Wes Craven, Quentin Tarantino, Simon Pegg, and Guillermo del Toro all do voice overs as newsreaders in the movie.
Diary of the Dead. Ok. A little secret - I'm not the huge Zombie fan HalfBaked is. I remember watching Night of the Living Dead as a kid. Looking back, it's not all that scary, but it's an important film. It was a horror movie with a message. I'm not sure I really got that at the time though. To me, it was slow moving corpses lurching after some idiots in a house. I was in it just for the chills.
For Romero, the classic Dawn of the Dead, and lesser Day of the Dead, followed. And then Romero left the zombie arena for a while - until Land of the Dead was announced.
Now, all that said - zombie movies began to grow on me at some point. I loved the Dawn of the Dead remake, for all its flaws. I loved Shaun of the Dead - sure it's half spoof but it's still awesome.
And I was pumped for Land of the Dead. Too much so. I was let down by it. John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper... a big budget... it's almost like Romero had too much going for him. The movie felt Hollywood, slick, the Dead Reckoning vehicle was lame, and even Asia Argento couldn't save the movie.
Diary of the Dead is what Land of the Dead should have been.
It's by no means a perfect movie. I actually started to get worried, at the outset, that this was going to be Blair Witch with zombies. Thankfully, it's not. The cast is as wooden as half the animated corpses stumbling around, but then in Romero movies that's usually the case. Still, the movie's messages shine through - and there's a bunch of themes this time out. Our reliance on the media. The power of new media. The importance of truth. Immigration, discrimination. Even a little tidbit on guns and gun violence. And whether or not, as a species, we're even worth saving.
So despite a weak start, Diary of the Dead finishes strong. And seriously, once you hit the second half, the payoffs start to roll right in: a zombie clown. A badass Amish dude. A zombie doctor and nurse. Society cannibalizing itself (not literally, the zombies do that). The kindness of strangers. Zombies trapped in a swimming pool. Awesome killshots. Stupid decisions by stupid people.
I'm really just rambling here, essentially, but a lot of images pretty much jumped from the screen during the second half of the movie. Some serious standout moments - but maybe I should backtrack, and explain the damn plot and concept.
Diary of the Dead is not a continuation of Night, Dawn, Day, and Land of the Dead. Instead, it's a reboot. Or an alternate reality. Or, the same day as Night of the Living Dead, but updated into modern times. It really doesn't matter - either way, it's the zombie apocalypse, starting now. A group of film students happen to be caught in the midst, and their director, Jason (Joshua Close) takes it upon himself to document what's happening. Along with him is the pissed off ex, the professor, the airhead, the silent broody guy - all the usual types.
Finding their campus - or at least their dorm - deserted save a looter, they head out on the road, looking to get to their respective homes, by way of an RV. Along the way, well... that's the fun in the movie. Passing through the chaos, trying to stay alive, and looking at the reaction of different survivors.
And encountering plenty of the undead.
Jason, for one, can't get over the importance of documenting everything. And here's where some of Romero's message comes into play - the power of new media over old. How one person, spreading the truth, can change things.
Yet at the same time, he seems to highlight the hazards of becoming too overzealous. Jason has trouble accepting the reality of what he's seeing - as if, because he's filming it, it's not real (he actually yells CUT at one point during a zombie attack).
Shot over 23 days in Canada with a mostly Canadian, mostly unknown cast - Diary of the Dead makes up for a lot of the letdown that was Land of the Dead, and makes me very, very excited for the premiere of Survival of the Dead, which will be unveiled in September at the Toronto International Film Festival. More importantly, it tells me that Romero still has it - he just needs the right motivation. Like a lot of filmmakers, I think that in giving Romero too much to work with, he gets lazy. Or maybe it's just the system itself.
Whatever the case, Diary is worth watching. Ignore the first person perspective stuff. It's handled quite well, set up to allow multiple camera angles, and doesn't come off at all like Blair Witch, or Cloverfield, or any other POV style movie. It's zombies from a personal level.
But some things never change - shoot 'em in the head.
Overall Rating: Half-Baked (3 out of 5)
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