June 20th, 2009

Like 1999's The Blair Witch Project and 2008's over hyped Cloverfield, we are once again treated to a P.O.V. style of shooting. For those of you who puked back up your popcorn (which had to suck because you probably spent your entire paycheck on movie theater food) while viewing those movies due to the shaky camera and fast movements, I don't think you'll be anywhere near as aggravated and/or nauseated watching this. The film moves at a slower pace, so that helps with having a steady camera and as pointed out in the opening of the film, there are two cameras being used instead of one. The additional camera, which is being held by another person in the group obviously, allows for smoother scene transitions since one person isn't trying to capture everything going on.

In a zombie film, this style does prove to add extra tension to situations. Of course, you have the low battery scenario like you'd expect from these types of movies, but with ravenous walking corpses afoot, you'd wonder why Jason would stand idle and document the hell going on around him while he charged the battery. Not just standing by in any place, though -- a hospital, the one place pretty much everyone should know not to go in the unfortunate event of a widespread zombie problem.

"Leave it! Let it charge," Debra yells at him. "I can't. I can't leave without the camera. The camera's the whole thing," Jason replies.

Jason's obsession with getting every detail of this ordeal on video (even if it means asking his friends to do or say something over again) often clouds his judgment, and at some points he seems more concerned with the status of his camcorder or how good of an angle he gets rather than the safety of his friends. He often has a habit of asking his buddies questions about really traumatizing things that just transpired, which naturally irks them, but it shows how committed he is to the documentary. While he's charging up, he stands in a hospital room with two dead bodies on the floor, alone with no weapons. His friends are looking for help because a girl in the group tries to commit suicide but is still barely hanging on to life. He feels guilty about not helping them out and has the urge to leave, but doesn't because he's "plugged in".

The footage being shot was edited and uploaded to the internet in a timely fashion, and despite his friends being reluctant to participate (most noteably Debra -- who questions it most of the movie), the "survival guide" becomes the main source of information for understanding exactly what's going on. Jason's Myspace page lit up with 72,000 hits in 8 minutes. The mainstream news is, according to Jason himself, "feeding everyone bull shit" and people "need to know the truth". If didn't happen on camera, it's like it never happened at all, right?

Diary of the Dead is not the best entry into the zombie sub-genre, but it's certainly far from being the worst. It feels low budget and indy, but given the shooting style, the style works because it would be hard to believe amateurs shot a super polished movie otherwise. Due to the visual choice, the acting doesn't seem as hokey as it would in a better looking film. Not to say there aren't some cheesy moments of dialouge exchanged between the characters or anything, I just didn't get the "B-Movie" vibe from this at all -- which is a good thing considering what it is.

I really enjoyed the themes, or social commentary, explored in Diary. This is one thing Romero excels at; putting a mirror on America and letting us see all of our ugly blemishes up close and personal. I would reccommend making this one more of a rental if you're not into these types of movies to begin with, but I'd say it's worth a purchase (preferrably on Blu-ray) if you dig blood and gore and you can find it at a decent asking price. Either way, you should find some way to watch this movie because despite it's few flaws, Diary of the Dead is, if nothing else, one of the more unique zombie films ever produced.