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Editorial Reviews
From legendary frightmaster George A. Romero comes one of the most daring, hypnotic and absolutely vital horror films of the past decade (fangoria.com). Romero continues his influential Dead series, this time focusing on a terrified group of college film students who record the pandemic rise of flesh-eating zombies while struggling for their own survival. Intensely gruesome and relentlessly grisly fueled by the directors signature realistic special effects Diary of the Dead is must-see horror that is Romero at his finest (bloody-disgusting.com).
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I thought the film was okay but I know to myself it will never be my favorite out of the bunch. Though it was a documentary I didn't quite catch it as one or for the majority of the film. In here we have a film crew that made up of different characters: The director Jason (Joshua Close) who acts though he believes that if it didn't happen on camera, then it never happened at all. There's his girlfriend Debra (Michelle Morgan) who gets increasingly annoyed with his filming everybody, Tony (Shawn Roberts) who looks like he is prepared to beat Jason to death, and there's even the drunken film professor Maxwell (Scott Wentworth) who looks upon everything with a bemused attachment. What George Romero succeeds in doing as a writer is give us characters who aren't simple types and break those clichés to become increasingly unpredictable in their actions.
Which is one of Romero's strong attributes is that he gives us strong characters with females and minorities. He started doing this a long time ago with "Night Of The Living Dead," and it continues on with this one. The female character that comes across as the strongest here is Debra, played by Michelle Morgan. She is driven to get back to her family who are back at home, and she is not about to get sucked into watching things through a camera lens. Michelle gives the strongest performance in the movie, and she also narrates the movie within the movie, so you have a pretty good idea of what happens to her character. The group does run into a squad of African Americans who have taken over a small town and all its supplies, and who refuse to leave the town. This is because for once, they have power over something that they have never had before, and you could see it as a sort of revenge against the white man for all they have put their people through.
The movie does have its share of good scares, and has that same morbid humor that has been present in all of Romero's "Dead" movies. This does make this film relevant in a way even after four decades after the very first one. The last scene in the movie questions the audience directly as to if we as a race are really worth saving or not. That scene will stay with you long after the movie has ended because the characters have only started to learn how to exist in a post-zombie world (shades of 9/11 do abound here and there).
The suspense was there along with the blood and gore, it was giving to us in a fair dose though not quite on the same level as "Dawn" or "Day." Still, there are some good kills throughout, and the characters make good use of a scythe and a bow and arrow. Romero, after all these years, doesn't skimp on the good stuff. However, it still takes these characters way too long to figure out that the best way to defeat a zombie is to shoot it in the head. Aside from that I was slightly disappointed with this film or documentary. I'm thinking there may be room for another one Romero zombie yet, and there is hope to be had in that even if the world is still falling apart. I wouldn't mind seeing him do one more, but I hope it comes out before the apocalypse hits us.
Which is one of Romero's strong attributes is that he gives us strong characters with females and minorities. He started doing this a long time ago with "Night Of The Living Dead," and it continues on with this one. The female character that comes across as the strongest here is Debra, played by Michelle Morgan. She is driven to get back to her family who are back at home, and she is not about to get sucked into watching things through a camera lens. Michelle gives the strongest performance in the movie, and she also narrates the movie within the movie, so you have a pretty good idea of what happens to her character. The group does run into a squad of African Americans who have taken over a small town and all its supplies, and who refuse to leave the town. This is because for once, they have power over something that they have never had before, and you could see it as a sort of revenge against the white man for all they have put their people through.
The movie does have its share of good scares, and has that same morbid humor that has been present in all of Romero's "Dead" movies. This does make this film relevant in a way even after four decades after the very first one. The last scene in the movie questions the audience directly as to if we as a race are really worth saving or not. That scene will stay with you long after the movie has ended because the characters have only started to learn how to exist in a post-zombie world (shades of 9/11 do abound here and there).
The suspense was there along with the blood and gore, it was giving to us in a fair dose though not quite on the same level as "Dawn" or "Day." Still, there are some good kills throughout, and the characters make good use of a scythe and a bow and arrow. Romero, after all these years, doesn't skimp on the good stuff. However, it still takes these characters way too long to figure out that the best way to defeat a zombie is to shoot it in the head. Aside from that I was slightly disappointed with this film or documentary. I'm thinking there may be room for another one Romero zombie yet, and there is hope to be had in that even if the world is still falling apart. I wouldn't mind seeing him do one more, but I hope it comes out before the apocalypse hits us.
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Good evening. This is Tom with Channel 4 news. The stock market crashed as oil prices hit record highs. The unemployment rate ballooned nearly 10% the past month while crime keeps escalating at an alarming rate. Home equity plummetted, health care plans are becoming invalid, taxes rose, debt skyrocketed, and the soldier's death toll suffers its most jagged increase since the opening weeks of the war. But to heck with all that irrelevant junk, did you watch American Idol last night? Hahaha, that's some funny stuff!
My biggest problem with the latest Dead installment is the seesaw effect between the serious and the comical. Throw in so much cheese and corn, and it's hard to digest all of the social and political commentary. George makes some great points, some important profound statements, and then shows something totally absurd to spoil the moment. I didn't particularly care for that.
I've got some more issues with this one. The acting is pretty bad, but that didn't really bother me. Neither did the CGI. I hated the tone, or the mood of this entire story. George never really establishes a dark, gloomy, foreboding atmosphere. In my opinion, an adequate feel of desperation never settles in, I'm sorry to say.
I did love the idea of the homemade zombie documentary. Romero tries to bring a fresh element to the horror genre, and for that he should be commended. But the camera work was not too convincing. It rarely has a real feel. And I was shocked at how underdeveloped the characters are. Maybe this story is about people as a whole, but some closer connection with some individuals would have been nice.
Diary of the Dead starts strong, but quickly fizzles out in many aspects. There are some nice gore scenes, although it seemed to be lacking in that department a bit. It has some undeniably great pieces from the master, but are bogged down by chunks of disaster. I will say that I'm impressed with Romero's efforts at something original in the zombie saga. Hopefully his latest effort will grow on me.
My biggest problem with the latest Dead installment is the seesaw effect between the serious and the comical. Throw in so much cheese and corn, and it's hard to digest all of the social and political commentary. George makes some great points, some important profound statements, and then shows something totally absurd to spoil the moment. I didn't particularly care for that.
I've got some more issues with this one. The acting is pretty bad, but that didn't really bother me. Neither did the CGI. I hated the tone, or the mood of this entire story. George never really establishes a dark, gloomy, foreboding atmosphere. In my opinion, an adequate feel of desperation never settles in, I'm sorry to say.
I did love the idea of the homemade zombie documentary. Romero tries to bring a fresh element to the horror genre, and for that he should be commended. But the camera work was not too convincing. It rarely has a real feel. And I was shocked at how underdeveloped the characters are. Maybe this story is about people as a whole, but some closer connection with some individuals would have been nice.
Diary of the Dead starts strong, but quickly fizzles out in many aspects. There are some nice gore scenes, although it seemed to be lacking in that department a bit. It has some undeniably great pieces from the master, but are bogged down by chunks of disaster. I will say that I'm impressed with Romero's efforts at something original in the zombie saga. Hopefully his latest effort will grow on me.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
George A. Romero's legacy as a master horror filmmaker is secure, that much I'll say at the beginning. With films like "Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead", "Day of the Dead", and the first two "Creepshow" films under his belt, George Romero has brought a lot to the genre over the years. Unfortunately it seems as if he's beginning to lose steam. "Land of the Dead" was a mediocre payoff for an ambitious effort, but "Diary of the Dead" is even less impressive.
Coming conspicuously hot on the heels of the hand cam style kaiju movie "Cloverfield", "Diary of the Dead" is a hand cam style zombie movie. While this is an interesting concept, the execution is so weak that the film seems little better than the recent Sci-Fi Channel Original "Return of the Living Dead" sequels. For one, the film begins with a voice over by one of the characters, who states woodenly that she put this film together from video she and her friends shot during the early days of a zombie outbreak. She then notes that she "added music to the film to try and scare you". Right. From that point on, the film follows a handful of film students who are trying to make a horror movie when the outbreak starts. They all decide to take off in an RV and regroup, one by one, with their families. One of them, an aspiring young director named Jason, refuses to stop filming, stating repeatedly that has to record everything so people will know the truth.
The idea of media truth is the central theme of this film. It begins by implying that all big media is so slanted as to be of absolutely no value and that perhaps user-produced media (like blogs and Youtube) is a better avenue for truth. Midway through the film, the message shifts to something along the lines of "the more voices there are, the more spin there is because everyone wants to tell the story their way". Now these issues are certainly worth discussing, but Romero has completely abandoned every last iota of subtlety in addressing them. Once upon a time Romero's films contained social commentary that had to be read into a little to really be appreciated. "Land of the Dead" was more obvious about it than the previous installments, but "Diary of the Dead" just beats you over the head with it as if viewers will be too stupid to get such an obvious premise.
This is greatly exacerbated by the ongoing voice over, always delivered in a wooden monotone, that constantly interrupts the flow of the film and even goes so far as to blow some scares for viewer by introducing them before they happen. What in the world was Romero thinking? The characters are all stiff and do little to draw our sympathies, and Jason, the lead, is easily the worst among them. It is completely unbelievable that anyone, even some sort of uber-serious documentary film student, would go so far as to, say, film a zombie attack rather than helping his own friends to fight them off or stay with his charging camera rather than help his companions look for help for a gravely injured friend. When a zombie movie is cobbled together poorly enough that believability issues enter the viewer's mind at all it means that something is very wrong.
What's even weirder is that none of the characters seem all that frightened of the fact that there's zombies around. They all seem capable of shooting perfectly straight, making wisecracks, and efficiently wielding any weapon from defibrillator paddles to dynamite to easily dispatch their foes. The viewer never feels any real sense of danger at all, even, bizarrely, when people are dying. The movie barely makes an effort to build tension, and almost any time some modicum of suspense is allowed to build up it is instantly blown by an intrusive and utterly unnecessary voice over.
"Diary of the Dead" is an almost staggeringly tedious movie. Before its release I'd waited with baited breath for this movie to come out, but in all honestly I spent the final half of the movie just waiting for it to end. It pains me to say this about a George Romero zombie movie, but I'm not lying when I say that I haven't seen a zombie flick this hard to enjoy since the legendary French stinker Zombie Lake.
Coming conspicuously hot on the heels of the hand cam style kaiju movie "Cloverfield", "Diary of the Dead" is a hand cam style zombie movie. While this is an interesting concept, the execution is so weak that the film seems little better than the recent Sci-Fi Channel Original "Return of the Living Dead" sequels. For one, the film begins with a voice over by one of the characters, who states woodenly that she put this film together from video she and her friends shot during the early days of a zombie outbreak. She then notes that she "added music to the film to try and scare you". Right. From that point on, the film follows a handful of film students who are trying to make a horror movie when the outbreak starts. They all decide to take off in an RV and regroup, one by one, with their families. One of them, an aspiring young director named Jason, refuses to stop filming, stating repeatedly that has to record everything so people will know the truth.
The idea of media truth is the central theme of this film. It begins by implying that all big media is so slanted as to be of absolutely no value and that perhaps user-produced media (like blogs and Youtube) is a better avenue for truth. Midway through the film, the message shifts to something along the lines of "the more voices there are, the more spin there is because everyone wants to tell the story their way". Now these issues are certainly worth discussing, but Romero has completely abandoned every last iota of subtlety in addressing them. Once upon a time Romero's films contained social commentary that had to be read into a little to really be appreciated. "Land of the Dead" was more obvious about it than the previous installments, but "Diary of the Dead" just beats you over the head with it as if viewers will be too stupid to get such an obvious premise.
This is greatly exacerbated by the ongoing voice over, always delivered in a wooden monotone, that constantly interrupts the flow of the film and even goes so far as to blow some scares for viewer by introducing them before they happen. What in the world was Romero thinking? The characters are all stiff and do little to draw our sympathies, and Jason, the lead, is easily the worst among them. It is completely unbelievable that anyone, even some sort of uber-serious documentary film student, would go so far as to, say, film a zombie attack rather than helping his own friends to fight them off or stay with his charging camera rather than help his companions look for help for a gravely injured friend. When a zombie movie is cobbled together poorly enough that believability issues enter the viewer's mind at all it means that something is very wrong.
What's even weirder is that none of the characters seem all that frightened of the fact that there's zombies around. They all seem capable of shooting perfectly straight, making wisecracks, and efficiently wielding any weapon from defibrillator paddles to dynamite to easily dispatch their foes. The viewer never feels any real sense of danger at all, even, bizarrely, when people are dying. The movie barely makes an effort to build tension, and almost any time some modicum of suspense is allowed to build up it is instantly blown by an intrusive and utterly unnecessary voice over.
"Diary of the Dead" is an almost staggeringly tedious movie. Before its release I'd waited with baited breath for this movie to come out, but in all honestly I spent the final half of the movie just waiting for it to end. It pains me to say this about a George Romero zombie movie, but I'm not lying when I say that I haven't seen a zombie flick this hard to enjoy since the legendary French stinker Zombie Lake.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Its okay.
But john leguizamo and Dennis Hopper ruined it for me. I am glad George is making movies because he is one of the best director's alive today.
Published 1 day ago by Joseph Grau
1.0 out of 5 stars
I can't hate the man yes bcs is not romero...terrible movie
this move is a low budget cheap movie for Romero, write the name of Romero does not mean is the best, this is one of the worst of Romero, (i dont think is Romero) I think Romero... Read more
Published 1 day ago by Edward
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Well Done
Although not my favorite of the "Dead" movies this is still a good movie. I liked that Romero ventured into the "documentary" style with this movie. Read more
Published 19 days ago by F. Sasso
3.0 out of 5 stars
Inevitably fails due to the inconsistencies with the plot. It's worth...
This review is a note for myself. All of these notes will provide a one-liner in the title to summarize my feelings of the film.
Published 1 month ago by Gene Kim
5.0 out of 5 stars
gift
I'm rating this high because my son was very happy to receive. It was an addition to his Romero movie collection.
Published 1 month ago by dj
3.0 out of 5 stars
ok zombie movie
It was an ok zombie movie but it could have been a lot some of the acting was horrible and didn't make any sense.
Published 1 month ago by adrian sachenz
5.0 out of 5 stars
if you are a George A Romero Fan
If you like classic Movies and specially Zombie Flicks This is a must for your collection its well made and a good story
Published 2 months ago by Carlos Perez
3.0 out of 5 stars
Diary of the Dead
If George Romero had made this three or four years sooner, it may have still been relevant, but DIARY OF THE DEAD comes in way too late in the long line of "found footage" films... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Carl Manes
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Zombie Movie with a Blair Witch Perspective
I thought this movie was very good. It had a good sense of realism the way it was shot. George Romero is the zombie master!
Published 3 months ago by R. Thomas
2.0 out of 5 stars
Boring!!
Lame acting and the the same story again. It was too long for a very stupid ending . Safe your money and pass on this one.
Published 4 months ago by Luis C.
