You could almost say, seen one zombie film, seen them all. George Romero's "Dead" series has nuances that go beyond mere fright factor of slow-walking zombies who are hungry for human flesh. "Diary of the Dead" is not as political as "Land of the Dead" and a bit more of a freak show yet it still shows Romero can swing this sort of uneasy horror with ease. I am just not sure he has anything new to say.
The film begins as an assembled edit of a found footage film called "The Death of Death," and that is the film we see for 90 minutes. The narrator is Debra (Michelle Morgan), one of the survivors of a group of college film students who are making a mummy movie in Pittsburgh. News reports roll in about a zombie apocalypse where people are eating each other - you know the drill. Jason Creed (Joshua Close) is the director of their mummy film and the found footage is mostly from his camera's point-of-view as he never puts it down, recording the shootings of the dead coming back to life. This group drives a Winnebago in what looks like a road trip to Scranton, Pennsylvania. We shouldn't forget that the group includes their teacher Maxwell (Scott Wentworth), who drinks booze and reacts with indifference at the sight of the dead. Maybe the booze numbs the senses but he also used to be in an unspecified war - Gulf War I perhaps?
Nothing in "Diary of the Dead" is remotely new though there are a few scares (two made me jump out of my chair, one includes Debra's younger brother). The cast, all theatre actors, are not quite a memorable group but you still hope they get out of this bloody mess and all the entrails that follow (Scott Wentworth's teacher and Michelle Morgan's Debra stand out). The settings include a luxurious home with a secret room, a huge garage-like hideaway housing armed survivors, and an Amish barn (!) and they all keep the intensity going long enough until we get to an ending that, though still gripping with the sight of blood trickling like a teardrop from a severed head, is essentially recycled out of Romero's earlier Dead films. You know the lines that embody Romero's theme of man's inhumanity - we are no different from the dead because some of us might use the Dead as target practice. The film also suggests that we rather observe gory car accidents than help our fellow humans in any said accident. All this observation can only happen with a camcorder or else it doesn't exist.
I respect George Romero and, for the most part, have enjoyed his zombie flicks. "Diary of the Dead" is enjoyable too and has enough moments of fright to elevate it above most others of its ilk. I just wish he would still find a newer angle like he did with the separation of the classes in "Land of the Dead." Here, it is all camera and surveillance technology that trumps humanity, only that conceit was hardly original in 2007 by way of ubiquitous found footage movies. Either way, decent horror fare and worth checking out for Romero fans.
