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Diary of the Dead (2007)

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218 comments in total

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32 out of 46 people found the following comment useful :-
Not Romero's Finest Hour!!!, 24 febrero 2008

Author: andell (andell1@juno.com) de Toronto, Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Sometimes, user comments on IMDb can be misleading! One comment recently suggested that this film is Romero returning to his roots, and suggested that this film ranks up there with the best of his 'dead' films. Respectfully, I disagree...very, VERY MUCH!

For those not familiar, the Dead trilogy went like this: 1- Night of the Living Dead: the dead return to life and terrorize the panicked individuals who have taken refuge in a rural home. 2- Dawn of the Dead: Romero's BEST, for those who don't know it; when society finds itself unable to contain the dead's movements, a small group hole up in a mall and find a small utopia in the commercial appeal after society's downfall. 3- Day of the Dead: Government, mostly at the prodding of the military forces, take refuge on Islands off the coast of the US, trying to find either an answer to take back the world (the military approach), or to live with the 'dead' (the scientific approach). 4- Land of the Dead: Society breaks down into colonies controlled by those who have the wealth and power to command military like forces and both the dead and the poor are subjected to abuse in these colonial like establishments.

As you can see, there was a progress to Romero's films- political commentary definitely was loaded in the films. For some reason however, Romero decided to make this film, which in a nut shell, is about a group of students who, while making a cheesy monster movie, find themselves in the middle of chaos and decide to document it. A la "The Blair Witch Project" (which is far superior!) and "Cloverfield."

One by one, most of the students are dispatched as they make their way across Pennsylvania in search of their families- though if you sit through the first five minutes of the film, the narrative tells you: a) the film is already over; and b) an effort to edit it in order to emphasize its fear factor has been made to 'wake you up.' The latter part is rather peculiar given that the film maker goes as far as to watch his friends being attacked by the dead, without helping them, in order to capture exactly what happened.

Does that seem parasitic? What is perhaps even more sickening is that the 'film maker' seems more concerned with 'hits' his video gets online than the well being of his friends, or that after he falls victim to an attacker, he's essentially regarded as a noble hero by one of the survivors.

I really didn't like this film, although it was clear that the crowds at the theater did enjoy some of the originality of the gore (in one scene, one of the dead is shocked with an EMP machine in a hospital, causing their eyes to explode, but not killing them). My advice: if you are tired of seeing shills that try to find the same pulse that the Blair Witch Project successfully exploited, or if you want to retain an idea that Romero's dead trilogy stands as a firm example of positive movie making, avoid this dud!

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89 out of 166 people found the following comment useful :-
TIFF screening, 10 septiembre 2007

Author: (kmprime21@hotmail.com) de Canada

At first I was apprehensive about this new entry in Romero's Dead series, but that pretty much disappeared after the first scene. The fact that the film was shot all in subjective camera doesn't result in a gimmicky, incoherent mess, like, say, the Blair Witch, but is used intelligently and effectively.

The scares and effects were great, and the movie actually takes a rather complicated approach to the topic of today's media-saturated environment, rather than being a crude polemic.

My only complaint would be that the voice-over and dialogue were a little clunky at times, overexplaining things that could have been inferred without too much trouble. That's a minor problem though. Overall, a totally worthy entry in the series.

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40 out of 71 people found the following comment useful :-
Something of a return to form., 19 febrero 2008

Author: projectcyclops de United Kingdom

I just saw a screening in Glasgow last night and was really impressed. After seeing Land of the Dead I feared GAR was destined to make only studio controlled zombie films that sold out his previous works, but this is something of a return to form. The budget is tiny and the actors unknown (as is the case with his best films), but the special effects are top-notch and there is plenty of gore that's made even more unsettling as seen through the lens of a camcorder.

The 'Point Of View' technique is bound to generate concern over similarities to other films using the same style (Cloverfield for instance) but Diary is a very different kind of film and certainly not a 'rip-off', but rather a smaller scale movie doing it's own thing.

There's humour (some real laugh-out-loud moments), social commentary (perhaps a little heavy handed, but relevant and intelligent), suspense, gore and everything else we've come to expect from a Romero film but bundled-up into a new and fresher style by the old guy. It was really interesting to see him trying something new.

As a fan of the genre and of Romero's works I was ultimately relieved and impressed by Diary after entering the theatre a sceptic. This isn't his best film and some fans will no doubt be let down, but after seeing it myself I was happy to see him back on track.

Thanks George.

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23 out of 38 people found the following comment useful :-
Interesting script - Weak characters - Bad actors., 12 abril 2008

Author: fettmedrespekt de Norway

First of all: I'm a huge fan of Romero's first three (quite disappointed with Land of the Dead) classic Dead movies, and have great respect and admiration for his work and the influence he and his movies have had on the entire horror movie genre. Along with Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento, Romero is without any doubt one of the most influential and important horror/splatter/zombie directors of all time. No question about it!

In Diary, Romero once again focuses on a few surviving people and the relationships between them, rather than the zombies and the gore. This is what has always made his movies great and powerful. In all his films, the zombies themselves work mostly as a reason to explain why a small group of very different people is suddenly forced to rely on, and help each other out, while the main focus is on the relationships between these people and the reactions and emotions that might erupt during such an extreme and interesting situation as a zombie outbreak.

While this formula is what has made his previous films interesting and entertaining, it is sadly what makes Diary of the Dead the exact opposite. And the reason for that are simply the actors. The main characters are all (except one) film school students, being just as shallow and cocky as every other cast of kids in any other "new" horror movie. The actors (all being young and unknown) seem quite inexperienced, and they all fail miserably to convince me, even for a second, that this is anything other than a bad student movie, trying desperately to be something more than it really is. And when ONE single interesting character (the mute Amish man armed with a scythe) is finally introduced, he sure doesn't stick around for very long.

A movie like this depends heavily on the actors, and when you seriously wish the entire cast would turn into zombies, just so they can shut up, the entire film, including the once great director, has failed.

The script itself, on the other hand, is actually quite good. There are some annoying things, like at the beginning when a couple of kids decides to leave school and go home and fortify themselves in a mansion, based solely on a radio broadcast, reporting about 6 cases of "strange zombie-like attacks". But over all it is an interesting script and I totally understand what Mr. Romero had in mind, and what he hoped to accomplish. Too bad the actors ruined it for him. A group of kids/students can also never be as interesting as a group of real grownups from different parts of society (as in Dawn of the Dead), and I really hope that Romero will leave the kids alone and once more focus on interesting characters, would he ever decide to do another movie (there are rumors of a Diary of the Dead part 2).

Better luck next time.

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57 out of 106 people found the following comment useful :-
Romero's Return To His Roots, 24 enero 2008

Author: Mike Reed (mikeisawesome17) de United States

George A. Romero is one of those filmmakers who shouldn't need an introduction. If you're a horror fan at all, you should be intimately familiar with his Dead series by now, and if you're a movie fan at all, you should at least know Night Of The Living Dead and Dawn Of The Dead, the first and still the strongest entries in the genre. It's no hyperbole to say that Romero essentially invented the zombie movie, gave it the structures and tones that have relentlessly followed the genre through 40 years of movie history.

Diary Of The Dead, Romero's new movie and latest entry into the 5-part series, is a return to the form and feel of his original classic Night Of The Living Dead. The three movies in between (the classic Dawn, hit-or-miss Day and severely underrated Land) showed a world consumed by destruction and fear, already well past the point of no return in an unthinkable apocalypse. Diary takes us back to the beginning, taking place during the first few days of the attacks, documenting how a group of college students (and one drunken professor) cope with the crisis growing around them.

The hook of the movie is that what we're seeing is not presented in a typical film fashion, but instead as a series of homemade video clips made by the characters themselves. While shooting their own low-budget horror movie, the students are interrupted by the sudden, jarring realization that freshly dead bodies are coming back to life and attacking people. What follows is a documentation of their quick departure from their suddenly deserted campus and their long trip to home, safety and any sort of an answer.

If the plot description has you thinking of The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, the comparison ends with the initial conceit of horror via home movies. There's no shaky-cam addled suspense here, and you won't ever feel motion sick. The camera's presence in the movie serves to give a heightened feeling of suspense and immediacy. Unlike most other zombie movies, there's no outside camera telling the story, letting us know where the zombies are and when they're coming. We follow the characters through the movie, and the threat of danger is always palpable, even when nothing on screen is particularly frightening. Hitchcock once said that surprise was a bomb going off under a table unexpectedly, while suspense was letting the audience know there is a bomb under the table while the characters remain unaware. Diary is a movie with thousands of bombs waiting under thousands of tables, waiting to explode every time the camera turns a new corner.

After Land Of The Dead, a great movie that felt buried beneath a huge budget and massive studio interference, it's great to see Romero returning to his indie roots. Diary is entirely his own movie, and he gets the tone perfect. The campy scares and the gross-out gore explosions are all present, and will delight fan boys to no end. (They sure got some big laughs out of me.) But what Romero does best is suddenly switch from fun to disturbing when you least expect it. The best moments of Diary come when the gory thrill ride comes screeching to a halt and everything suddenly becomes all too relatable, entirely too real. These are the moments that will stick with you after the gory brain-splatter effects have lost their novelty.

Diary isn't quite a perfect movie though. Occasionally the hand-held camera device becomes too distracting and begins to get in the way of the story. The movie takes too much time rationalizing why the characters decide to film the events, rather than trusting the audience to go along with the idea. At times it feels like the movie is apologizing for its own concept, which it definitely does not need to do. We don't need to know the details of why the movie is edited, or why music has been added. The explanations slow down the movie, and only highlight problems instead of fixing them. Also, the pace slows down quite a bit in the third act, which is when Romero movies usually jolt up to a fevered pitch. Stick it out though, because the movie's last sequence, and especially its last line of dialog, are worth the price of admission alone. This is most likely not the end of the Dead saga, but if it were, it could not have come to a more perfect conclusion than the jarring, horrific last shot Romero gives us.

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9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Romero embraces the Youtube age……and its' short attention span, 10 mayo 2008

Author: motsivad de Oxford, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Diary Of The Dead is a film in which George A. Romero tackles the digital age, and the information barrage that it brings us. Rolling news, Youtube, Podcasts, Myspace are the media of choice for an era where information is global, instant and 24/7. It is in this climate that the 'Dead' franchise gets the Blair Witch Project. We follow a group of young film students who find themselves having to band together after the dead start returning to life. Seeing the magnitude of the event a few of the troupe take it upon themselves to record a document of their plight for survival. It is this 'life through a lens' that gives us Diary Of The Dead.

To expand on the cataclysmic events Romero uses footage from news channels, video blogs and web cams. The accessibility of the Internet mirrors the wildfire decline of humanity as the zombies take over and society collapses. However if there is one thing that defines this Internet era, it is short attention spans.

Sadly this pandering to the Youtube generation is what seems to sum up 'Diary'. The strength behind the previous 'Dead' movies was that the survivors were stationary and holed up (whether it be in a shopping mall or bunker). As such it was the banality of their existence that became even more unnerving than the zombie threat. In 'Diary' the action is kinetic and the editing very fast-paced, as if Romero is keen to hold the short attention span of a young audience that now lives off 1 minute video clips, and skim-read 'Wikipedia' articles. As such the characters never stay in the same place for more than 5 minutes, as the scene hopping goes into overdrive.

I'm sad to say that 'Diary' smacks of compromise. Romero inserts his typical biting social commentary, but it's often blunted by a desire to make the film palatable enough to younger generations and audiences. Trying to make reflective points about humanity when they're delivered by identikit good-looking young actors (who look more suited to being in 'The O.C') feels akin to having 'Hamlet' read out by Lindsay Lohan.

Also Romero's hand seems forced to add the checklist of 'teen' horror clichés.

'Gross Out' deaths- Check

Ditzy Blonde Girl- Check

Older 'world weary' authority figure- Check (The professor)

Zombie jumping out from side of frame- Check

Big scary mansion finale- Check

Despite its' flaws, 'Diary Of The Dead' is worth seeing simply for the glimmerings of Romero's post 9/11 views. Ironically, it is modern culture that not only embraces 'Diary' but also forces Romero to dumb down. 'Diary' is a flawed, experimental film from Romero, however a flawed Romero is far more challenging and interesting than 99% of the competition. An honorable 'miss' of a film that sees the master of zombie movies bound by the requirements of commercial success.

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17 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
Astronomical Disappointment!!!, 20 febrero 2008

Author: tungfliker de United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I just saw "Diary of the Dead" last weekend. I'm not saying I hated it, but I was very disappointed. I can appreciate the concept, but George really dropped the ball here. I think the main failure, is that this type of film (P.O.V.) is out of Romero's element. Given the right tools and scenario, George Romero is a master. But, the guy just isn't cut out for "Cloverfield" or "Blair Witch" type stuff. Another fault-too many characters, making half baked decisions, solely for the purpose of putting themselves, or companions, in danger. I really expected more from a filmmaker of this caliber. Also, the only character I REALLY liked, was the drunkard professor.

It's a damned shame, cause this was a pretty cool idea. Obviously not enough preproduction was done.

The DP does NOT know how to properly simulate P.O.V. shooting.

Having a music score was absurd! An equally eerie effect, could have been achieved using total silence combined with simple, unnerving sounds. Think of the scene in "Das Boot" where the U69 is lying on the bottom, and all that can be heard among the silence is a ticking stopwatch, drips of water, and the hull groaning.

Jason was such a self absorbed jackass, that NOBODY cares what he has to say, or what happens to him. Also, even an douche like Jason, will put the camera down to save his own ass. There should have been scenes (like when Tracy is being chased thru the woods, or the hospital) where Jason sits down the camera to help out. The camera could have recorded part of the image, or shadows, along with sound to keep the audience abreast of what's happening. Not seeing everything could have been used to create suspense, and give Jason a chance not to be such a schmuck.

Samuel was whacked far too soon. He was too interesting to kill off so fast. He shouldn't have been killed, until the heart attack guy was loose in the "Black Panther" compound. Plus, imagine the possibilities of Samuel and a deaf Black Panther, hitting it off thru sign language. This was such a wasted chance for interesting character development.

I think it's great that George wants to make a social comment, but Effin' A man-lighten up!

Spoiled, multi-millionaire kid is wearing the same grungy mummy costume for three days, after he's back home in a huge mansion, with a huge wardrobe? NOT! This is totally unbelievable! I know George wanted to have his mummy chase at the end. But, the guy's clothing could be dirty/disheveled enough from dragging around the undead, that it would have a mummy-like appearance. Thus, the sight gag would still work, and be a lot more realistic.

A 100 lb kid being thrown against, and pinned to the wall, off the floor, by an aluminum arrow? It defies the most basic physics! Nobody is buying it. The sister should have thrown him off her back, against the wall. Then he should have been shot with the arrow. And instead of staying pinned to the wall, after a second, the arrow should have snapped. The kid sliding to the floor, and leaving a skid mark of blood and brains, would have been a more shocking visual to boot.

Oh-and with the exception of about four cast members, the acting licked turds!

George Romero still has my utmost respect. But while a nice try, on this venture I give him a C minus. George-now that a sequel is in the works, PLEASE use better preproduction this time. And find a crew with the stones to tell you if something is a bad idea-instead of those who would blow smoke up your ass. I think those Canadians are afraid of offending the master....unlike us Yinzers, who regard George as "a nice guy to drink an Ahrn City with."

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Unimpressive zombie flick,but still pretty good., 3 junio 2008

Author: HumanoidOfFlesh de Chyby,Poland

A group of film students is in the woods shooting a low-budget zombie horror flick when the zombies start to rise with a hunger for human flesh.Next we see civilization fall apart as the zombie apocalypse is coming.Two of the group peel off and head back to a house they describe as a fortress and the rest sally forth in search of family aboard an RV.The students are also filming themselves trying to survive the end of the world."Diary of the Dead" is shot cinema-vérité style by our fledgling film crew caught up in the web of horror.There is a decent amount of gore and the acting by unknown cast is adequate,but the tone of the film is sometimes too preachy.If you are paying attention, assorted radio broadcasts are voiced by Romero fans such as Quentin Tarantino,Simon Pegg and Guillermo del Toro with a religious rant by Stephen King.7 out of 10.

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10 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Unimpressive, 19 mayo 2008

Author: doomster927 de Canada

I have been waiting awhile to see this and was quite disappointed with it. Now I am a huge fan of the Dead series that Romero created I wish there were more films to the series. However this movie really disappointed me. I was wondering about bothering to watch this when I heard this movie would be made like Cloverfield was, but I decided Romero would impress me more then the guys who made Cloverfield. Guess I was wrong.

To start with the acting was lame, even when Romero had low budget movies before at least the acting was good enough to bear. The lines in the movie were cheesy but I have noticed that the lines usually are in a Romero movie.One thing that bothered me is the point of view idea that seems to becoming more common.I don't know about anybody else but I like knowing about a broader view of the action not just what one person experiences . With what I have seen when movies are made with the point of view I would think the movie would try to make things so the characters are more relate able and a person can get better insight into the characters thoughts and mind.This chance does not seem to be taken .

The story seems like it could have been covered better from the third person point of view and not under the narrative of the film which by the way was dull and painfully obvious at the symbolism it was trying to slap the viewer in the face with.My final problem with the movie is there was not as many zombie eating people moments as there could have been.That's one of the reasons I watch these movies for is straight out zombies eating people and zombies getting killed by people.There was just not enough of this which was a major disappointment.There was still good amounts of gore for the scenes with the killing in them though. Overall this movie just could of been better presented and should of had more zombies getting to chomp on people. Maybe people like that Romero is doing more independent filming but I love major motion pictures and this just did not appeal to me.

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96 out of 188 people found the following comment useful :-
Great film from Mr. Romero..., 9 septiembre 2007

Author: eveneshen de Canada

Alright, well I'll start right off the bat with, I loved this movie. I will bore you with a synopsis of the movie, cause you can read the plot somewhere else, and I am pretty sure most of you know the plot already. Instead of the movie starting off with saying "George A. Romero's DIARY OF THE DEAD", it begins as a fully cut together documentary about what these students went through for the first few days of the outbreak. The movie has narration, and is told through a variety of cameras, security cameras, self phones, news footage…this makes for an already very interesting watch.

The movie starts out with a great opening scene which grabs you right from the get go, and already you can tell that this is not some Blair Witch knock off. Comparisons to Blair Witch will be thrown right out the window. In DIARY the camera acts as a character in the film, a lot of time I forgot I was watching a documentary esquire movie, and thought I was just watching a film. Instead of shaky cameras, off the cuff improv dialogue, we get a full more theatrical sort of experience. We still watch the whole movie through the POV of the cameras, and this never changes…which leads to some terrifying scenes. I have never found zombie movies scary, but this was quite a creepy film in parts. Most notably the "Hospital Scene", talk about a perfect creep fest…great location, great build up…great pay off.

From the get go, I can assume that this will be a movie that either fans or going to love or hate. It's very much the Romero world; there are little nods to Night and Day. But the overall feeling is something new all to itself, obviously one can compare it to Night, but even that would be a very loose comparison. What really makes this movie work is what you don't see. The film is not a zombie gore fest by any means, not by comparison to Land anyways (But don't worry, DIARY still holds a great deal of signature Romero moments that had the audience up and cheering). There are no huge crowds of zombies roaming around, they are here and there and they still very much are a threat, but still not the scariest. Radio reports and peoples actions really up the paranoia level of the movie, and make it a scarier experience. This is by far the scariest Romero Dead film of the series; it holds a great sense of dread with it.

In the negative department, of which I have very few complaints, I think some of delivery of lines where a little camp. And the staging of a couple scenes definitely played cheesy in a few parts where it should have been serious. Also, there were only a couple CGI moments that took me out of the movie (don't worry, there is no priest zombie in the movie, the CGI is very subtle). But all these complaints are few and far between each other.

All together, DIARY was a very impressive achievement for Mr. Romero, and I hope this film sees the light of day soon, cause I know I can't wait to see it again. I think the social commentary in this movie played stronger and better then it did in the other films. This was a nice touch; it really added to the overall experience, it brought a sense of reality to the whole concept…more so then the other films in my opinion. In conclusion, Romero fans won't be disappointed, the film has his dark humor and great zombie moments laced through out the film. And people looking for more then just cheap thrills, should also leave the theater feeling satisfied.

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