Diary of the Dead

George Romero has returned again with the fifth film in a franchise he pioneered starting with Night of the Living Dead. Romero has also returned to his indie roots. He moved away from the large scale budgets and Hollywood machine that helped him produce Land of the Dead and has instead financed it independently and cast unknowns in the leads. In addition the film becomes the second in less than a month to use the "document it as it happens" conception. Cloverfield had such a jerky camera that even I had a headache by the time the auditorium lights were raised and luckily Diary of the Dead is not nearly that erratic.

A group of student film makers is out in the woods filming a low budget horror film with their professor when they hear news that the dead have returned to life and are attacking the living. The group immediately leaves the woods and after a short detour to pick up one of the group's girlfriend, they are off in a Winnebago heading to said girlfriend's home to check on her parents. One of the group decides that this all needs to be documented and studiously takes on the task. They have run ins with zombies and various elements of decaying society as the zombie apocalypse runs rampant.

Much like the camera man in Cloverfield, the cameraman in this film feels the need to be totally objective something close to 99% of the time and refuses to help his friends even when his actions could have saved them. This like all Romero's zombie films of course has a message. Of course in his more successful attempts the message is more subtle (never completely subtle but definitely more subtle). Here the message about the advent of viral video, what isn't recorded never happened and online social phenomena is overbearing. Not just because its quite clear from the actions and the footage but also because the characters can't shut the hell up about it. They constantly have to discuss it.

The film acts as little more than a gimmick which is made the dumber by adding a second found camera and occasionally edited in security footage. The film gets quite boring quite fast. The story telling is lazy and the dialog is generally atrocious. There is nothing that saves this movie from terrible but there were two things a generally enjoyed. The first is a mute Amish man the group encounters who aids them which had me in fits of laughter (perhaps not Romero's intent). The second involves a zombie and a jar of sulfuric acid in what I now consider the coolest zombie death that I have ever seen (granted no one in the theater shared my opinion as I was cackling with glee and the rest were stoically watching the film).

So as much as I enjoyed Romero's early zombie films, I think he needs to retire gracefully and let the fan boys do the work. I think they will end up doing a better job.