“Diary of the Dead” review
As promised, last night I went to see “Diary of the Dead” with my local group of zombie-heads. All in all we had a great time, and I would recommend that you take your friends to see this latest entry in Romero’s zombie canon.
However, let me warn you that the movie contains barely passable acting, a thin script, and ridiculous situations. Even giving it some slack for being a zombie movie. The old British professor that constantly drinks and spouts defeatist bits of philosophy got real old real fast. I can’t remember any characters names, but they included the filmmaker, the girl in the corset, the shy girl, the nerdy guy, and the tough girl.
The premise of this zombie episode is that a group of film students begin recording the events that happen at the beginning of the zombie crisis. This is played out as a shot-on-video style similar to “Cloverfield” or “The Blair Witch Project” but with less jittery-cam than the former and more structure and story than the latter.
Romero is famous for having a “Deeper Meaning” behind each of his zombie movies. This one is no different. However, the subtlety that worked for “Night of the Living Dead” and was somewhat present in “Dawn of the Dead” is long gone here. Romero might have well as had giant flashing letters announcing, “This line has a deeper meaning.” I mean, come on. At one point there is a globe with the Earth turned upside down in its stand. I truly expected Romero to be in the back of the theater to literally hit us over the head.
For all of its down points, I still recommend the movie because it is very fun when it forgets to be preachy. Each zombie kill is more creative than the last. One character gets a bow and arrow, and another kills a zombie with a defibrillator. The funniest part by far involved a deaf, Amish farmer who had had a stroke. He ambles up to the main characters, and almost gets shot before they realize that his moans do not make him a zombie. He promptly pulls out a small chalkboard to communicate before throwing dynamite at a pack of approaching undead. Wow. I laughed a lot.
See it, but see it with like-minded friends.
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