One Minute Review: Diary of the Dead

A disappointment, in the same vein as the very-poor-indeed Land of the Dead. Diary of the Dead focuses far too heavily on the survivors – all of whom are irritating stereotypes. We have the geek, the macho jock, the Texan beauty queen and, hysterically enough, the bow and arrow-wielding professor with his terrible English accent.

Worst of all, we have the man holding the camera. Romero’s point about this generation of rubbernecked, car crash watching youtube-addicts is all well and good – but when a pretty girl is being chased by a zombie only metres away and the cameraman (himself a character in the movie) decides to just keep rolling rather than intervene with a sharp implement to the eye socket, any realism sought through the use of digital camera imagery is blown out of the water.

Still, for all that, there are zombies. But the sad thing is, there aren’t many of them. Nowhere near enough of them and at no point do we get a whole load of them swarming towards us – the essential visual when you consider the genre.

Still, there is a really good bit where they use those ECG things you use to jump start a heart on a zombies head, making her eyes pop out like strawberry angel delight – so for that alone it’s worth renting. But a much better and more considered undead film shot from the first person is The Zombie Diaries, an under-the-radar British oddity.

And it’s got Dr Legg in it.

Tags: Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Dr Legg, Entertainment, Film, Geroge Romero, Land of the Dead, Movies, Uncategorized, Zombie Diaries