George A. Romero's "Diary of the Dead": A New Zombie Classic

Diary of the Dead is the latest in the "of the Dead" series created by writer and director George A. Romero. Forty years ago, Romero was the zombie king, with Night of the Living Dead, a movie that tradition says was filmed by a few friends in Philadelphia over a long weekend.

Almost forty years after Night of the Living Dead premiered in October, 1968, Romero was in Nashville last week introducing a sold out crowd at the Belcourt Theater to the latest work, Diary of the Dead.

Romero is the accepted master of American zombie horror and has always made certain that the films, which he wrote or co-wrote and directed offer a commentary on the political situation of the times.

Night of the Living Dead was a commentary on racism as he observed in the 1960s. Dawn of the Dead (1978) marked his observations on consumerism by having the dead head to the shopping mall as a memory of significance from their lives.

Day of the Dead (1985) was a commentary on the military industrial complex and Land of the Dead (2005) was a commentary on class divisions within society. Diary of the Dead, Romero's newest foray into the zombie movie, is a commentary on the media.

The most telling quote of the movie, which Romero has used in interviews as well, is that when there were just the three major television networks, there were three lies being told to the public. Now, with 400,000 bloggers, there are 400,000 lies.

Over the years, Romero lost the copyrights to several of the films, with Night of the Living Dead becoming public domain because of an unrenewed copyright. In 2004, a high-budget remake on Dawn of the Dead stayed close to the original premise, but did not involve Romero.

So, to get his name back on the franchise copyright and to tell his newest story, Romero made Diary of the Dead without a Hollywood distribution deal. As he introduced it at the Belcourt, he said the movie was a labor of love shot in 23 days in 2007 near Vancouver, Canada. The option to shoot in Pennsylvania as he had originally was lost because shooting there would have required the entire cast be union members and would have drastically increased the cost of shooting the movie.

However, the movie pays homage to his Pennsylvania roots as it is set in Pennsylvania and the characters involved are associated with the University of Pittsburgh.

Diary of the Dead begins with a group of college filmmakers working on a horror films as a senior thesis when they see initial media reports that three people killed in a shooting get up off the gurneys taking them to the coroner and attack the news crew filming the crime scene and the police officers on the scene.

In quick succession, several other news agencies report incidents of the dead coming back to life and the film crew hits the road, to try to get the students home to their families. Meanwhile, the film student who had been working on his thesis insists that they keep the cameras rolling so that there is a record of what happened.

The film is supposed to be that record.

The cinematography of this movie is what scared me when I first heard about it. It is shot using two handheld cameras and I thought that would mean shaky camera work a la Cloverfield or The Blair Witch Project. Instead, the camera work is similar to that of a television news crew.

The movie is a bit strange in that there are points when the "students" directly address the camera, usually telling "director" Jason to turn it off.

Romero does an excellent job of explaining away the acquisition and inclusion of film footage that the students would not have recorded themselves and includes the most rational character in the movie, Tony, who denies throughout much of the movie that this could be happening.

Though the movie takes us back to the first nights that the dead begin walking, it is set completely modern day with the students frantically attempting to call home via cell phones and logging on to the web as often as possible to try to find any information about what is happening.

Personally, my favorite of the Romero movies has always been Dawn of the Dead and I adored the 2004 remake, but after viewing this movie, I have a new favorite.

Horror fans will be disappointed in this movie as it is not a classic horror movie. The zombies are a part of the movie and there are points that may make you jump, but this is not about being scared or loud noises in the theater. This movie is better classified as a drama about survival as the world falls apart around you.

Diary of the Dead was shown at some film festivals and began distribution abroad before going into limited American release in February. The Weinstein Company recently acquired the distribution rights and the film is headed for broader release later this spring.