Horror master George A. Romero returns to his original movie ideal of zombies taking over the planet, with Diary of the Dead, but this newest film sets itself apart from the plethora of remakes and sequels.
The story begins with a group of student filmmakers from the University of Pittsburgh, who are trying to create their own horror film in the woods. Emotions are running high, and they are on the verge of shutting down production for the night. When the students suddenly hear on the radio that the dead have begun to come back to life, they are at first ambivalent, and then appalled, as they witness first hand the malicious corpses shuffling towards them. Desperate to escape, they commandeer an old Winnebago in the hope of finding their families, but as the days go on, the dead rapidly begin to multiply, until there is nowhere else to run. The kids have the idea to film the dead on their video cameras, in order to have a real life documentary of how they conquered the world, but it becomes horrifyingly clear that their maybe no one left alive to ever see it.
Ripe with scares, comedy, and social satire, Diary of the Dead is a very clever commentary on the Youtube generation and how we as people have to film everything we see, even when it is at its most grisly. As far as acting goes, the inexperienced cast does their best with the often-absurd dialog, but I think the absurd is what this movie is all about anyway, and since we don’t really care for the kids, it doesn’t bother us. The zombies are what we are here to see, and they are indeed the best part of the film. The film has already been picked up for distribution by The Weinstein Company, so you can probably expect it sometime in 2008.
