Diary of the Dead Review

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Director:

George A. Romero

Writer:

George A. Romero

Oh how the mighty have fallen.  Diary of the Dead marks George Romero’s fifth entry in his zombie saga.  He seems to be suffering from G.L.S. (George Lucas Syndrome) where his original three films were stellar; then he took a whole bunch of time off, and returned to give us garbage.  Land of the Dead was a decent monster movie lacking in the subtle messages of George’s previous films, but Diary of the Dead is just Romero at his worst.

George went from making a bigger budgeted Zombie Film with Universal the last time out to making a purely independent, back-to-basics film with Diary.  Why George won’t or can’t conform with a studio continues to shock me and has only served to handicap his projects while other, lesser directors get financed to rip him off.

Diary of the Dead is George’s first technically all Canadian film, with entire Canadian cast and crew.  Land of the Dead was shot in Canada but featured American actors.  Land was the first Romero Zombie film to not be shot in Pittsburgh and now Diary has nothing to do with America at all except for the claims that the characters in the film are from that area.  I do not intend to make a racial comment here, but there is something different about Canadian actors and locations that set those actors and films apart from American made and starred films.

George wanted to go back to basics and the beginning so here we are retreading the same waters as in Night of the Living Dead.  Diary takes place at the beginning of the Zombie outbreak, just like Night did, but Diary takes place in 2006 not in 1968, an odd choice for George, but his intention was to have the outbreak take place during an era in America when the internet and technology are all the rage.  The whole reason for this film is to show how citizens, here a group of college students shooting their own horror movie, would react to this chaos if they were equipped with camera’s and internet. 

Romero’s main character Jason Creed spends almost the entire movie behind a camera, as the film is seen and shot mainly through his perspective.  The trouble here is that George fails miserably at creating that same perspective that was so successfully accomplished in BLAIR WITCH and in both PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies.  In Diary we are always aware that there seems to be this mysterious third camera around covering what is obviously not being covered by the first person camera.  The other failure here is the shooting method of Blair Witch and Paranormal gives those films an absolute look of Cinema Verite while Diary of the Dead seems obviously plotted out and the actors don’t for s moment seem like real people, they seem like poorly trained actors.  George could have been on to something if he had created this film to have the look and feel of Paranormal Activity, etc., but he either doesn’t have the drive or he doesn’t retain the talent to pull it off.

The writing in this film is also embarrassing.  George used to be simplistic in his writing, allowing the audience to draw its own conclusions about things, and his social and economical subtexts were always underlying and not in your face.  Here, the message is so often repeated and spoken so loudly it’s as if there is a scroll at the bottom of the screen reminding you that getting these events all on tape is what matters most.  It’s pushed so hard that in scenes where characters are in trouble Jason, holding the camera, doesn’t even stop to try and help his friends.  And in order for him to be successful at holding the camera nonstop, the zombies never come after him. 

And since we have gone back to the beginning of the outbreak, the make-up effects go back to being simplistic and the number of zombies’ goes way down, reversing the trend that with each sequel we get more gore, more decay and more zombies. 

Never once did I care for any of these characters or what they were going through because whereas in Night of the Living Dead those characters seemed scared and confused, these characters seem unable to perform as actors or lend any credibility to Romero’s awful script.  And why did George feel the need to retread on issues and situations he already dealt with prior and with more success?  It’s not like Diary of the Dead made any money with its ultra-limited release.  And why did George have to move everything to Canada?  The man turned his back on Pittsburgh and the United States and Diary is his punishment.  One of the worst zombie films I have ever seen, and to think it came from the inventor of the genre.  Shame on you George.

GRADE: D