"Diary of the Dead" Review

Well, as an avid zombie movie fan, I was thrilled to have the only theater showing "Diary of the Dead" in California north of San Diego practically in my backyard. And after passing by on Friday only to see a tremendous line, I knew I had to see it that weekend. Had to.

Romero didn't disappoint. Those who have only seen new, fast zombie movies like "28 Weeks Later" and the "Dawn of the Dead" remake, which were both excellent by the way, will need to get adjusted to Romero's campy style and slow moving monsters. Romero has not lost that camp that makes you smirk, but it has certainly been toned down and the cheesy factor here is an all-time low for his films. The effects were not cheesy at all (although he ALWAYS comes up with the most creative ways to both find and destroy zombies) and frankly HD suits his production value extremely well. He shot this movie in 3 weeks and it doesn't look rushed at all. That said, my roommate was kind of disappointed (although a self-proclaimed horror movie fan) that this was more like the throwbacks than the slicker new horror movies. I was not disappointed at all.

"Diary of the Dead" takes place at the time of the original "Night of the Living Dead" movie and follows a small group of amateur filmmakers who first learn of the zombie attacks as they are filming their own monster movie. The irony and self-awareness of "Diary of the Dead" is rare in a film, as the monster movie the students film at the get-go ends up being fulfilled in the course of the real monster movie, their lives, after being initially picked apart as illogical. The amateur filmmaker, Jason, who films the whole encounter, even sitting in a room littered with corpses to charge his camera, is constantly under siege as a leech, an opportunist, and a sicko for filming the ensuing chaos. He even goes to great lengths and danger to film as he's being attacked by zombies, which says several some things about his personality and about the compulsive need for technology.

Technology, which is kind of a broad overview, is shown as the only and most important way to circumvent traditional media and spread the truth through the internet - both with Youtube videos constantly popping up throughout the film to spread tales of survival/zombie-killing tips and blogger posts making sense of what is going on - but it also takes a more individual subtext. The technologies to which we have become so reliant almost prevent us from staying in the present moment, as it becomes more important to document memories for Youtube and others ("I got 88,000 hits in 4 minutes, how is this not important?!") than it is to actually live them. Jason spends so much time filming that he is unable to comfort or even protect his girlfriend, which Romero makes sure to hammer home.

As with any Romero film, the characters (even the zombies) are rife with hyperbole and political commentary. His first film was seen as important (albeit accidentally on his part) as a commentary on race and each ensuing one has seen countless interpretations and seemingly has new targets each time we watch them. There's no question that Romero has developed and expanded the zombie universe and mythology almost single-handedly-- his zombies have evolved from film to film--but it's interesting for him to go back to the outbreak at the onset of the MySpace/Facebook/Youtube/Google generation.

One of the most interesting facets to me was the uselessness of our modern skills in the face of such a crisis. As the characters were forced to adapt, they had to find out who they really were in the face of battle, firing a gun, and up against life and death pressure. These traits, which are animalistic and have been honed over generations through evolution, are conspicuously absent in our daily lives and very few of us know how to wield a weapon successfully or how to survive on our own in the wilderness. At one point, Jason remarks, "$100,000 education and I can't find my way out of a f*ing warehouse." His point could not be more clear: our preoccupation with artificial skills has led us to lose the ones that would help us to survive a crisis. Our control over the world is tenuous and one disaster away from total mayhem. The citizenry of 2008 could scarcely be counted on to pick up arms and serve as a militia... what hope do we have for the zombie invasion?