Blogorium Review: Diary of the Dead

Is this really the fifth "Dead" movie? With so many remakes and imitators out there, it's hard to believe that, and honestly I thought it was the fourth. For some reason I kept forgetting Land of the Dead, even though I liked the direction Romero was heading in that film. Still, I can't blame him for walking away from studio interference and making his newest "dead" film on the cheap. Night, Dawn, and Day were all financed independently, and they do have a gritty quality that no budget increase can replicate. So instead of continuing the saga of the world in post-infestation, Romero goes back to the beginning for Diary of the Dead. But does it work? Has the man who really put social commentary by way of flesh eating undead lost it, or is Diary of the Dead an on the money critique of the 24 Hour News Media Generation?

Well, there's two things going on here in Diary of the Dead: 1) Romero is playing around with the "found footage" world of Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project, and 2) he's tapping into the YouTube generation in order to make his commentary relevant. Only one of these is really successful.

Look, I've heard both sides of the argument about Diary of the Dead. I understand that the movies since Night have been not so subtle comments on society, but George never made it so transparent as he does in Diary. Having a narrator holding our hand when we can figure it out for ourselves is just embarrassing. The character of Debra makes such a radical shift halfway through the film that it makes her tactless narration even cheaper on the second go-through. I get what Romero is trying to say, but he's never done it this badly.

It doesn't help that the main characters are at best paper thin. The film students (and their professor) that comprise the main cast are so poorly sketched out that I had a really hard time caring when *spoiler* they started dying. We just don't get any time with them that doesn't feel perfunctory or cliched. Worse still, Diary of the Dead DOES introduce some really interesting characters (the Amish farmer, the guys in the warehouse) that seem to have logical and organic reactions to the "dead" outbreak. Instead of spending more time with them, however, they're brushed aside so we can get more hollow explanations of why anyone would just stand there and film while their friend is bleeding to death. If that wasn't enough, the marginally interesting students get shoehorned with truly awful dialogue.

Take, for example, this awkward dialogue from two thirds of the way in:

"It used to be us versus us."
"Yeah."
"But now it's us versus them."
Narration: "Jason was right, except that them was now us."

Come on. Romero goes all the way around himself to say the same stupid thing that Barbra says in the Night of the Living Dead remake. For one thing, you could've reversed what he said and did without the omniscient narration, but that's just one example of how poorly the subtext is handled.

On the other hand, Diary of the Dead is proof that Romero can use the by now overused "handheld camera" format to generate suspense. There's some genuine tension in Diary, particularly in the barn sequence, the warehouse, and the mansion at the end (not so much the hospital, which is just awkward). When he can keep the characters from overexplaining the totally unnecessary things they do and the really terrible cg gore doesn't get in the way, Diary of the Dead can at least remind you why George Romero is the master of the zombie film.

I can't give this movie a pass, however; it's just too boneheaded in making wafer thin characters do things no one would ever do, and the subtext is about as subtle as watching Fox News. I really don't understand why Diary of the Dead insists on undermining the "internet free press" position it takes by equating that very position with "noise", but a lot of things just don't make sense about this movie as a whole.