Diary of the Dead
Country and Year: USA (2007)
Director: George Romero
Starring: Michelle Morgan, Josh Close, Shawn Roberts, Amy Lalonde, Joe Dinicol, Scott Wentworth

Review By: Charlie Prince
Rating: 3 ½ out of 4 stars (very good)

Greetings from Sundance! Horror legend George Romero premiered his new film Diary of the Dead last night to a sold out crowd at the Library Theater in Park City, which ended to enthusiastic applause from the audience. In a stark departure from the storytelling in his legendary films Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and the more recent Land of the Dead, here Romero takes a page from Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project in that what we see on screen is “footage” filmed by a character in the film. Jason, the lead character, is making a documentary on an outbreak of zombie attacks (”The Death of Death”), which, by the way, starts afresh from the first attacks as if the timeline of Romero’s previous zombie films had been reset.

As the movie begins, the film feels like a spoof. At the outset (before the zombie attacks have begun) Jason is a student filmmaker trying to make a (fictional) zombie movie, which allows Romero to poke fun at himself and his past films. For example, on a break between takes, the lead actress in Jason’s film demands to know why women in zombie movies are always getting their dresses torn off, and why they always trip on their high heels when they are chased? Jason also goes out of his way to criticize the idea that zombies could move fast (an obvious jab at the recent towards “fast zombies”, as best seen in 28 Days Later and the follow up 28 Weeks Later (and also more recently in I Am Legend) and even earlier in Return of the Living Dead).

At this point in the film, I must confess to having been a little nervous, as the send-up of horror movie cliches has itself become cliche in the wake of Scream (see also the recent zombie comedy Fido), so I was worried Diary of the Dead would quickly run out of steam. But the dynamic changes a few minutes later when the student filmmakers hear on the news that real zombies are attacking people. Before long the film crew sets out in a Winnebago to rush home and make sure that their families are safe. And while they are initially pretty comfortable that things will be okay, as the media coverage continues to stream in they (slowly) come to understand that they are facing a very serious emergency.

The nuts ‘n’ bolts zombie footage is great, as we’ve come to expect from Romero. It is equally impressive how much fun he manages to inject into the story. While the underlying message of the film is a serious reflection on the media/information age, he still makes time for outlandish zombie killings that will be sure-fire hits with horror fans (they triggered spontaneous cheers from the audience at the screening I attended). Similarly, there is a brief scene where the kids encounter an Amish man who is unable to speak and must write on a chalkboard to communicate which is VERY funny, and of course intentionally so. It is the rare horror movie that can pull this off (Evil Dead and Army of Darkness come to mind) and Romero seamlessly pulls off the overt comedy without crossing the line to killing the flow of the film. This is consistent with Romero’s past films, especially the self-aware comedy in Dawn of the Dead. And of course it marks a strong difference in tone from the serious characters in 28 Days Later, even while there are similar themes (scavenging for food and other supplies, military safe compounds, the trustworthiness of military figures in a society that has broken down….).

As the characters begin to realize they will not escape from what is clearly a global phenomenon (another video clip from the Internet reveals the problem has broken out in Japan), the social commentary becomes more pronounced, reminding us in the audience that this is an allegory, and this is where the film really rises above the majority of zombie films. The allegory is most evident in the main character, Jason. Jason begins by insisting on filming his friends throughout their fears and trauma, which of course prompts us in the audience to side with Jason’s friends in thinking “now is not the time to make a movie.” But Romero quickly makes clear that he is moving beyond the standard use of this as a plot device (as an excuse to explain why we have this “footage” that we see on screen) and is instead inserting a surreal element to the story to make a point — in fact, the insistence on filming IS the point. In an early scene, (mild spoiler rest of this paragraph) the group has gone to a hospital to help their bitten friend, only beginning to realize the extent of the threat. When it quickly becomes clear that a hospital is the last place you want to be when the dead start to come to life, the characters naturally decide it is time to get out of Dodge. But Jason insists that he must remain because his camera is out of batteries and he needs to recharge them, because it is imperative that he be able to continue to film. His friends naturally condemn him (but also placate his demand) and by the end of the film this has been taken to an extreme. Having picked up an additional camera en route to the grand finale, we now have multiple camera angles to work with and two of our main characters choosing to film what’s going on — instead of helping to fight off the attacking zombies. In one scene we see a girl being attacked by a zombie while her boyfriend films from a couple feet away. “Help me!” she screams at him, but he responds that he can’t because he’s busy filming.

These exaggerations are obviously meant to be a commentary on the way society treats and reacts to events around them and the media. And just in case we missed it, the narrator supplements this with brief monologues arguing this point. Many ideas are put forth: we as a society feel content to observe atrocities (to document them), rather than any urgency to help; the explosion in information and the number of media sources on the Internet has actually made it harder to find the truth, so that it all adds up to a bunch of mere “noise;” if something doesn’t happen on camera then it doesn’t really exist or matter in our society (a phrase repeated several times by characters in the film); and the need to upload videos and blog is a temptation, it is asserted, that none of us can resist (several characters initially refuse to film but when the camera is put in their hands, they suddenly feel the need to document things too). This is just off the top of my head and I’m sure there are many others minor themes that would emerge on a second viewing, but collectively the message raises real concerns about the way the “information age” is affecting our society.

After the screening, in a Q&A session, Romero noted that there is a line in the film that is easily missed, in which a character claims that back in the old days when there were only three major television networks, there were three “lies”, but today there are millions of sources of information and, as a result, millions of lies. Romero continued, saying that while it may be true that the major networks “managed” the information we had access to, today’s Internet media is completely unmanaged, completely unfiltered, and it was a phenomenon that made him uncomfortable. He concluded that from his perspective, a little management of the way information is presented is a good thing.

For fans familiar with Romero’s previous work, this comes as no surprise. Whereas Dawn of the Dead is famous for suggesting that blind consumerism (think mall shopping) it is the equivalent of living zombi-ism. It is good to see the director return to this style, and I get the sense that resisting the need to make this film fit within the bounds of his earlier films (he is essentially starting anew with this film) freed up Romero to be more playful. Overall, while I enjoyed Land of the Dead, I’d argue this is a far more thought provoking and satisfying film. He ended his talk at the screening with a discussion of how this film came about. “Nobody is going to call me to direct a remake of ‘My Fair Lady,’” he said, “that’s not going to happen”. But, he went on to say, he did have the option to express himself through zombie movies. Essentially, when he has something to say about the world, he can make a phone call himself and so long as he promises to include zombies, he’s able to make the movie. “Diary of the Dead” proves once again that Romero both has something to say and is at the top of the game in being able to say it. I, for one, say keep ‘em comin!

© Charlie Prince

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