Review of Diary of the Dead (2007) by Emmet B — 02 Aug 2010
Suprise surprise. George A Romero has made another zombie movie. He really shouldn't have bothered. The whole hand-held camera thing which worked very well in Cloverfield just comes across as really contrived and stupid in this.
The monotonic detached female voice-over was just shamelessly borrowed from The Terminator movies in an attempt to give an epic feel of dread and finality. Whereas it was very powerful when used by James Cameron it just sounds naive and childish in this movie.
Also the ridiculous attempt at some kind of misplaced social commentary about modern attitudes to the media and the age of ubiquitous video devices is way too heavy handed. It is almost as if he is scraping the bottom of the barrel in an attempt to keep his franchise alive.
The acting is wooden (although it would be unfair to expect anything more from a George A Romero movie). The situations are just rehashed variations from earlier movies. It is becoming quite clear the reason why Romero keeps churning out this crap is simply because he is not a good director.
He only knows one thing. Zombies. As much as I love zombies and advocate their presence in the political arena I expect a lot more originality from a genre movie of this type. I will not be watching any more of his movies in the future.
This review of Diary of the Dead (2007) was written by Emmet B on 02 Aug 2010.
Diary of the Dead has generally received mixed reviews.
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