Having grown up in rural PA the notion of some kind a survivalist militia group doesn’t surprise me. That it’s a black militia does. Since Romero zombies are every person that dies (other than from massive brain trauma) it doesn’t surprise me that the world would go to hell in a matter of days. It’s not like World War Z were it’s a plauge that can be contained. The recently dead seem to be rising everywhere at once. Even so it doesn’t make much sense that TV and radio would go out in less than three days. Or that everyone just accepts that the dead are rising so fast. Or how good a marksmen everyone is (Miss Texas excluded). I would’ve like to seem more fake news coverage though. It’s not his best, but Diary is still better than any non-Romero zombie film (excluding Shaun) I can think off.
Agreed, the hospital was the complete opposite of what I expected one to be like in that situtation. Notice how even though both zombies were wearing the same scrubs they assumed that the male was a doctor and the female a nurse?
This DiaryOTD got panned right off the bat, so I didn’t run out to see it. (If I even could have, in Phoenix.) It’ll be DVD material one night, as I loved the other Romero films. There was something missing in Land of the Dead, but I chalked it up to the modern cinemotography. The remake of Dawn of the Dead is great for the first 10-15 minutes, and merely OK after that.
The deaf Amish farmer was probably the most impressive character. Being both deaf and Amish, he wouldn’t have had any news from the outside world, but when the walking dead started showing up at his farm, he took care of business. And the way he ended up might seem impossible, but I’ve read about one person doing it historically.
Come to think of it, I wonder how well the Amish communities would do. They’re self-reliant communities, and have grown up without electricity and cars. Unlike most groups of people in George Romero movies, they might actually stick together and survive.
Well…initially they did seem a bit skeptical. Some more so than others. But when you see them rising around you, you don’t have much of a choice, do you? I guess in most zombie movies, you just have to accept that the people are pretty well versed in the idea of the rising dead and that that’s that.
Though Shaun and Ed’s reactions in “Shaun of the Dead” seem pretty realistic to me, right down to Shaun not wanting Ed to use “the zed word” to describe the rising dead.
And despite being pacifists most Amish men are familiar with firearms. They raise livestock and are allowed to hunt. Of course they’d not only have to deal with the living dead, but the living as well. Once people start fleeing the cities nearby rural areas would be overrun and Amish county is only a daytrip from Philadelphia
I watched Diary of the Dead over the weekend and I have to agree with this thread completely, it was a total piece of shit. It’s the first Romero “Dead” movie that I’ve outright hated.
And I think I finally figured out exactly why. First and foremost it’s because of the dumb characters. Put down the fucking camera and help your friends survive!
Second, the whole “cover-up” of the rising dead was just so stupid. Why would every news station in the world collectively agree to not tell the world the dead walk? That newspaper headline was one of the major themes of the Living Dead series. People knew what was going on, but because they couldn’t believe their family and friends were zombies, the plague began.
I know Romero had to do this to make the whole MySpace/YouTube angle work, but it was just dumb.
I guess that was making the point that the way we use electronic media, we think we’re connected but we’re really insulating ourselves from life and other people. Yep, they really made that point. Over and over, with absolutely no subtlety, since it was not only suggested, but explicitly stated.
Maybe the silliest expression of this was when they’re in the abandoned hospital and the would-be film director simply cannot bring himself to go help his friends because his camera is plugged into the wall, recharging, and he can’t leave the camera behind because then his experience would have no meaning.
Then, a few minutes later, a zombie is about to attack his friend Gordo, literally right in front of him; he could have dropped the camera, grabbed the zombie (with its back to him) and saved his friend’s life. Instead, he just films. If I were one of the other folks in the party, I’d really think about leaving that asshole behind.
