George A. Romero's Diary Of The Dead

** out of ***** 

Genre: Horror
Director: George A. Romero
Starring: Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Shawn Roberts, Amy Lalonde, Joe Dinicol, Scott Wentworth, Philip Riccio, Chris Violette, Tatiana Maslany
Year: 2007
Running time: 95 mins

It's an understatement to say that I was greatly anticipating watching "George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. The original "Living Dead" trilogy (1968-1985) is amongst my favourite horror films. The follow up "Land of the Dead"(2005) was a worthy successor as well. So when he announcement was made of a brand new take on his zombieIt's an understatement to say that I was greatly anticipating watching "George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. The original "Living Dead" trilogy (1968-1985) is amongst my favourite horror films. The follow up "Land of the Dead" lore, but using the now all-too-familiar 'handicam style for added realism', I was very excited. I talked with fanboy abandon all day about the fact I was going to watch it...sucks to be me. What an absolute mess this was and for so many reasons. I was bored stiff (cadaver *humour*) almost the entire way through and ended up along way away from being  satisfied once it was done.

First up was the "acting" or whatever it was that they called that. Listen, I do happen to know a thing or two about the craft. And something that is talked about in every workshop about it is that there is a vast difference between merely saying your lines and between actually delivering them. It's about the suspension of disbelief that allows us to be put into the shoes of the characters involved. What a joke that this was here. I've heard better delivery at a cold reading (audition without prior knowledge of the script) and it was embarrassing to watch these people fumble around saying everything in a shallow monotone. And I do mean everything. A fun trick is to jump to any scene in the film while someone is talking and realise that they sound exactly the same whether discussing philosophy, the state of filmmaking as an art form, or whether they just killed their parents who had turned into flesh eating monsters. Not a single line of dialogue was uttered at any point that echoed believability. Not a single line gave me a connection to the people involved and the situation around them.

Past the actual delivery, the motivation of these characters followed suit. Very few choices made any sense at all and held water about as well as a decaying corpse would. Maybe you could believe that the stress of the situation was making people do strange things…but as nothing else was believable, you find it impossible to give anything the benefit of the doubt. The characters would leave places that were perfectly safe seemingly to just move the 'plot' along. Characters would let their friend comfort their crying girlfriend because they were too busy holding the camera. Oh good, I've mentioned the camera work.

Here's an idea; when you decide to make a shaky "it's like someone is really filming this for realz~!" movie, maybe you should consider making it look like someone is actually filming this. For "realz". Ordo what they did here and have an obviously expensive film camera recording everything (but treating it in the script like a more basic camera) just not on a tripod. If "Cloverfield" (2008) (a movie I straight up loved) had been filmed the way they did this, it would have failed completely. So: no sense of realism in the cast, their dialogue, their story, or the way it was shot. And all in a movie that proclaimed that as the main reason to watch it.

Now, another thing that "Cloverfield" did right, and is an easy choice given the filming style, is because the camera is moving so much you never get a good look at the CGI. This in turn makes it look more realistic. Diary slaps logic in the face again and has the camera eerily stay still when CGI is used. And boy, does it stick out like a sore thumb. The effects are all shiny and brightly coloured…it is embarrassing and takes you out of the film even more than everything else. No, that is a lie. The voiceover does the best job of that.

You know what movie was awesome? "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991). I sure did love the Linda Hamilton voice work echoing over the whole film. Why am I thinking about that now? Because "Diary of the Dead" decided to do the exact same thing here, only even preachier about us destroying the world we live in. And with the annoying monotone of someone reading lines like you recite your shopping list. It is laughable at every turn. She talks about how we are watching her documentary about the horror that the world went through (and I'm guessing survived?) and points out that she added "scary music" in parts, in order to try and scare us. Right. I kept waiting for her to tell me that SkyNet became self aware at 2:14 Eastern Standard Time.

This film was a colossal disappointment for me. It's not like I was expecting the genre to be re-written or anything like that. I was simply expecting a good movie. Apparently I was silly for anticipating such a thing. "Diary of the Dead" is almost in "Lady in the Water" (2006) territory (In terms of just how bad the film is). You're still my hero, Romero (there's a song in that) but this was something that couldn't be saved. What an absolute shambles.


This film will screen in Wellington at The Paramount on July 18th at 3:45pm and July 20th at 8:30pm.

Please refer to the Film Festival homepage for more information on screenings in other parts of the country