Movie Review: Diary of the Dead (2008)

"Diary of the Dead" is a film by the grandfather of zombie genre, George A. Romero. This film is the fifth installation in the quasi-series that includes "Dawn of the Dead", "Day of the Dead" and "Land of the Dead" among others. After watching "Diary of the Dead" it is difficult to believe that the man who created "Dawn of the Living Dead" is also the same man who made this movie. It lacks the depth amidst the scares and gore of Romero's previous movies. To an unknowing audience, the film gives the impression that it was made by an amateur trying to copy Romero's film-making style. It lacks all the necessary elements that are characteristic to the work of a seasoned film maker such as Romero.

"Diary of the Dead" is filmed according the point of view of a specific character as he experiences the disastrous events that unfold throughout the film. When watching a film like this, the audience must have the feeling that he is going through the same emotions as the main character as if he is experiencing it first-hand. This film fails to create that feeling among its audience. The acting is artificial and the dialogue is very unrealistic. These two factors make the film very unbelievable, which is important even in a horror film. The audience must be made to believe that what is going on in the film can happen in real life. This will make the movie even scarier to anyone watching it.

"Diary of the Dead" is supposed to be presented like a documentary that shows the events as they happen. The other movies previously made with the same format used dialogue and recorded footage to give the viewers a clear picture of what is happening. This film does not use that technique. It uses a voiceover narration to narrate what is happening. The narration can be very distracting and interferes with what the scene is supposed to deliver to the audience. There are some scenes that would have been really scary if not for the interruption of the narration. Even with the added music, it is still a distraction. The movie would have had a better chance if the narration was excluded.

The plot itself is a problem for this movie. It is an all too common plot that has been used in so many horror movies. The story revolves around the world's reaction when the dead start to rise from the graves. It is just the usual story where the military and government falls apart. As a result chaos and panic erupts among the whole population. There is really nothing special about the plot. It lacks the embellishments that would have made the plot a lot more interesting.

The development of the characters in "Diary of the Dead" is very bland. Not one character can stir your interest or even empathy. All of them fail to stir any kind of emotion in the audience. To make it worse, the actors' acting was really bad. Their faces fail to show the right emotion appropriate for the specific scenes. It just fails to bring out any screams when you are too busy noticing how poor the acting is. The dialogue is also another flaw of the movie. The few attempts at humor in the film fail to bring out any laughs as well. The only thing that has kept the audience in their chairs for the remainder of the entire film is the great locations that were used in the film. The film may be bad but the makers have managed to select really great spooky locations for most of major scenes. This is definitely not one of the greatest works of George A. Romero.