Diary of the Dead is one of the worst films I have ever seen

Cafe Society
1

So last night me and a few friends went to go see Diary of the Dead – now I’m not a huge fan of zombie movies, but after the excellent Cloverfield, I was totally into the premise.

Oh what a mistake that was.

The acting is horrendous, the characters completely unbelievable, the story is nonsensical, and it’s boring as hell to boot. I nearly fell asleep several times during the damn thing. The movie is also not even remotely scary, and the film even undermines its own ‘documentary’ angle with some absurd narrative devices (adding music to the film, having practically every character find some camera and use it to film their best friends WHEN THEY SHOULD BE HELPING THEM, being able to grab footage magically from any available source – absurd).

One of the worst movies I have ever seen. And even my Romero praising friend agreed; what a freakin’ mess.

2

Agreed.

Romero’s “subtext” is about as subtle as a splitting maul to the junk. This is what he considers insightful? I like the idea of zombie movies, but there are few I actually really enjoy.

3

I thought Land of the Dead would put to rest the notion that Romero’s zombie movies are clever social commentary. Ooo, the zombies are attracted to the mall! Take that, American consumerism!

In Land of the Dead we are supposed to see the zombies as victims. In the movie’s parting shot, the jerkoff says just before riding off into a world filled with more zombies, “They’re just looking for someplace they can live.” No, they’re not. They’re eating people. The world is theirs – it’s the people who don’t eat people who are being oppressed. Sure, the human camp had some assholes in it who use up precious electricity advertising high rise living to people who aren’t going to be allowed to live there. But the worst people among the living aren’t actually grabbing people ripping flesh from their live bodies with their teeth.

4

I saw this movie a couple weeks ago, and was thinking of starting a thread on it.

I certainly wouldn’t say that it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Heck, it wasn’t the worst Romero zombie movie (that would be Land of the Dead). The premise (how would the zombie holocaust look like in a world of social networking) was pretty cool, and it seems like there’s a lot you could do with it.

But, yeah. The movie was not good. The girl’s horrible, cheesy voiceovers not only took me completely out of the movie, they - along with the ridiculous “artistic” shots - made the whole thing look like some cheap Sci-Fi Channel original movie at best. There are several parts of the movie that look more like an Unsolved Mysteries reenactment than anything.

Plus, they went about the whole “found footage” thing in a completely nonsensical way. Cloverfield set this up fantastically - they set up the premise that you’re watching some archival footage held by the military, and you learn everything you need to know by watching events “as they were recorded.” This movie has a truckload of poorly-acted exposition on top of what is supposed to be an edited documentary of sorts.

The result is that the movie makes absolutely no sense. When did she make this movie? Are we to assume, then, that the zombie situation was resolved? Is that what she spent her time doing in that weird reinforced monitor room they ended the movie in? Who’s watching it? There are shots that make no sense, and many, many times where it makes no sense that anybody continued filming.

The acting was horrible, to the extent that the actions of various characters don’t really make any sense. The fact that the script was totally nonsensical didn’t help, either. The world basically went from zero to post-apocalyptic in about 48 hours. Hell, the main characters encountered a fully-formed and self-sufficient militia. WTF? How on earth was that organized so quickly? Were they already formed and just waiting around for some apocalypse or another?

And a lot of this could have been forgiven if the movie had expanded on its premise in some cool way. It didn’t. The most the movie ever does with the idea of people blogging the zombie holocaust is… have the main character, in voiceovers, tell us that people were blogging the zombie holocaust. How insightful! Things like the mention of MySpace just made the movie feel as if it had been written by some old guy trying to approximate how kids talk.

Beyond that, the movie is just a retread of typical zombie movie tropes. Hell, the protagonists even find themselves in a farmhouse at one point :smack:

For me, the movie’s saving grace was that the guy who survives the movie was really hot.

I still love Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, but Land and Diary don’t exactly do a lot to convince me that George has still got it.

5

You know, I think that, aside from Diary being a categorically terrible film, its proximity to the vastly superior Cloverfield isn’t doing it any favors – I wonder why they decided to release it so soon after? Perhaps to ride Clovie’s success?

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When I checked on IMDB, they showed about 19 places in the COUNTRY showing this movie, a week after it had debuted. It was given a limited release, which was a bit of a death blow, imo.

The reason it looks so low budget would probably be that it was… low budget. Romero tried to avoid any large studio involvement, as he felt that they had gutted Land.

I liked it. I enjoyed it, and it was nice seeing zeds that were zombie looking, instead of zombies that had greenish-blue skin.

That being said, the acting was not great (to be expected, given the cast of “unknowns”) and some of the exposition was very clunky.

I did like the jab he took at Gunn’s Dawn remake… “You’re dead! If you move fast you’re going to break your ankles!”

The extra footage was implied to have been pulled off the internet. And the fact that the internet and radio and such is still up indicates (to me) that the zombie apocalypse was a slow motion collapse, as shown in Romero’s movies, rather than the total fast collapse depicted in Dawn 2004.

But yes, the movie could have used some judicous editing.

7

I just got back from seeing this. I liked it. It wasn’t the greatest but at least it tried something new in the Zombie genre. I think that’s why Land was so bad. It was more of the same thing. For those who haven’t seen tis I would consider this a rental or a buy if you have all the other Romero movies.

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I guess if any thread might appropriately be resurrected. . . .

Just saw the DVD. Damn it, George Romero, how thick do you think I am? I mean, Romero’s never been exactly subtle, but how many times do we need a character to make the point that people are seeing their world through electronic media, not firsthand? If that ponit had been made a little more slyly, and if we hadn’t had the stupid framing device of the character Deb (at some unspecified time) editing the footage into a finished product, complete with music and her own absolutely unnecessary narration, it could have worked.

Hell, maybe Romero needs a studio to mess with his picture. (And I’m a fan; his Dawn of the Dead remains my gold standard.) But subtle the guy ain’t. I’m fine with underlying social satire, but it really pokes through to the surface here. I just don’t get the artistic choices made with this movie.

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I thought it was hilarious. I went with people–some of whom hated it, some of whom loved it…I don’t know, I don’t think we’re meant to take it too seriously. (Plus, I scare kind of easy so I thought the zombies were mega frightening.) I mean, any movie with the line, “Before, it was us versus us. Now it’s us versus them. Except them…is also us” is PURE BRILLIANCE! Also, “Mornings and mirrors, can’t stand them.”

10

Dude, all the Romero zombie films suck.

Ok, **Night of the Living Dead ** and it’s various shot for shot remakes are creepy and scary. A small group of assholes and redneck retards have to depend on each other while under seige by zombies in a farmhouse. Scary stuff. Like 40 years ago.

Dawn of the Dead? Other than the opening scenes in the housing projects, the only thing slower and more plodding than the zombies was the plot. The remake was far more intense and even that wasn’t that good. As for social commentary, I just don’t get it. Is the fact that it is in a mall supposed to be a commentary on American consumerism? So does that make Maximum Overdrive a commentary on our energy policies because it takes place in a gas station? That movie was badass by the way.

**Day of the Dead ** was an interesting social experiment on what happens when some nerds are trapped with a bunch of assholes in a bunker with a bunch of guns. The remake looks too stupid to live.

Land of the Dead - Johnny Angel said it best. Yeah…The zombies are just trying to live the American dream. Life…er undeath, Liberty and the pursuit of braiiins.

And I’m sure **Diary of the Dead ** sucked. Dear diary. Today I got trapped with a bunch of retards and assholes with videocameras by some zombies. Everyone died. The end.

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Major League Crapfest. Low budge shaky cam was innovative with Blair Witch but is now just a tired cliche. The only thing that could have saved it was a lot more nudity. Christ, I saw it at Sundance and had a headache for two days afterwards.

12

Never mind

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Its. It’s a pronoun, therefore its possessive has no apostrophe.

There’s never been a shot-for-shot remake of that movie, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about there. The 1968 movie had a subtext about racism, Vietnam and alienation.

Yes, the satirical subtext in this one is about consumerism. And alienation.

This one’s about militarism. Oh, and alienation.

This one’s about homelessness, classism, greed, and – I forget the word – that thing where people are alienated from each other. (And to show how lazy they were about presenting those themes, it has people still fighting over money – actual U.S. paper currency, which somehow still has value.)

Actually, there was nothing wrong with the premise, or the underlying theme – except that it wasn’t really underlying, but front and center, and driven home like a tent peg being smashed with an enormous wooden mallet by the circus strong man.

I got pretty tired of the film student literally refusing to put down his camera and help when a friend is being attacked right in front of him. (And did they really believe that a small amount of hydrochloric acid would melt off half of a man’s head?)

I did like the bourbon-drinking British professor. Only interesting, truly sympathetic character, really.

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Okay, so am I truly the only person who thought it was the funniest zombie movie ever? and yes, funnier even than Shaun of the Dead–which was in all fairness quite funny.

I LOVE the professor. I want to keep him in my pocket at all times.

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Well, Deb’s narration was unintendedly funny, in a really irritating way.

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Yeah, I have to agree that Romero tends to use a sledgehammer to drive his point home. Too bad really, as I think if he tried for more subtlty (as in the original NotLD) he would have a lot more success.

That being said, the blonde should have been much more naked, much longer. Would have made for a much better movie, imo. :smiley:
As for remakes, there is a 1990 (?) remake of NotLD that was directed by Savini I believe. It was ok.

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I haven’t seen it yet, but this thread hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm to do so. Every Romero film meets the same kind of “reviews,” which almost always (I said almost) turn out to be flat wrong.

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I felt the same way.

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No, it was the fact that the San Francisco theatre it played at was the Lumiere, which I tend to think of as our local vector of second-string cinema snobbitude, that made me think that. :stuck_out_tongue:

And hey, it was a George Fucking Romero movie! So I was at pains to be there for the very first opening day matinee screening, smoked to the rafters for the occasion and carrying concealed contraband candy from Cala besides (it gives me a gut ache in my very soul to have to pay movie-house prices for candy, so I don’t ).

I liked it.

It was a fun, brutal ride, and that’s one of the things I go see scary movies for. Perhaps it did seem a bit dumber than the rest of Mr. Romero’s cadaver carnivals, but damn, it had a lot going for it. just as a regular blood-soaked and doom-cloaked horror movie, I thought.

The format and the found-footage conceit made perfect sense to me – it was more or less explicitly stated that what’s-his-name had died the sort of horrible death we’d all be down for, should the Zombageddon shit hit the Western Civ fan for reals and so his babe, what’s-her-name, had finished it as a tribute to him.

I thought the reactions of all our obnoxious young RVers were a pretty realistic cross-section of something close to credible. Especially the fucked up rich boy whose family palace all his buddies eventually made it to. The way he just slid from nihilistic drunk party brat to shell-shocked pathetic ninny to liability to their viability was believable and even sympathetic. And when I realized what was the real situation he had been talking his loopy way over and under and around, it made me actually shudder! It’s been a while since that happened.

Also scary and effective - the fucking hospital interlude.
The long sequence with the hard-ass blacks in their fortified merch mart was interesting and thoughtful, in my opinion. I liked how these guys who looked like they could’ve been stone cold thugs a few weeks ago, had their shit pretty much together – and ultimately dealt sternly but fairly with the soft white kids who came roaring and whining into their scene. A real sharp contrast with the way the cleancut well organized militia honkeys turned out to be just a bunch of thieves.

And lastly, I was in awe of the drunken British professor too!

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Him I really liked…he was very realistic. I could kind of see myself just going under like that, if something this fucked up was going on. I mean, the dead are rising, man.

I’m not sure I’d ever need to see it again, but I’d see another Romero movie…in theatres. I don’t think I’d get as scared viewing it on DVD at home. I’m planning on seeing the non Romero zombie movie Quarantine when it comes out. I know, you guys are probably thinking that this trend of “real life” movies filmed on camcorders (supposedly) is played out and tired…but I think deep down I might be a braaainless movie going type. (Well, not entirely–I can recognize irony and all that.)