Since 1968, legendary horror film director George A. Romero has been terrifying audiences with his socially conscious zombie movies.
Romero’s first flick, 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead,” set the stage for zombie filmmaking, and 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead,” set in a shopping mall, proved that movies about the undead could transcend blood and guts to carry a message about consumerism and society.
Romero’s latest flick, “Diary of the Dead,” continues this legacy, albeit in a much more modern way and with a much more obvious critique.
“Diary” has a simple premise about a group of young film students as they try to survive a mysterious zombie infestation.
The film’s news organizations aren’t telling the truth about what is happening, so Jason Creed (played by Joshua Close) uses his camera to document his group’s quest for survival.

The majority of the film’s action is captured on Jason’s handheld camera, which means that the video is jumpy, jerky and constantly moving, similar to “The Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield.” It’s an annoying tactic not only because it’s nauseating but also because it tries too hard to be modern. Filmmakers are quick to assume that today’s young moviegoers are used to the jerky quality that comes with handheld video cameras, but that is not the case with big-screen fare. Audiences are more likely to spend the length of the movie wondering when someone will set the camera down so the video will stop jumping around all the time.
The one thing this technique accomplishes is to make the film’s action feel up-close and immediate. There are moments when the action takes place out of view of Jason’s camera, placing viewers just as much in the dark as the film’s characters.
Apart from the cinematography, the film’s technological plot devices continue to act as a crutch for “Diary” as it struggles to force itself into relevance in the digital world. In one scene, Jason uploads his footage to MySpace and instantly gets thousands of hits. The film’s narrator, Debra (played by Michelle Morgan) constantly reminds viewers that the Internet is the only place where people are telling the truth about the zombie invasion – but also that no one really knows what to believe.
The repeated references to the Internet and downloaded videos become obnoxious very quickly and are a far cry from the subtle, understated commentary behind Romero’s earlier works.
“Diary of the Dead” is at its best when zombies are ripping apart their prey and survivors are pumping bullets into the zombies’ undead bodies. Blood and guts are often the highlights of Romero’s films for many fans, and “Diary” provides a decent amount of gore – except that here the bloody messes come via computer generated imagery. No more goopy corn-syrup blood or obviously fake corpses. But even this more realistic gore feels like a weakness for “Diary” because it represents just one more way in which technology has altered the Romero zombie movie experience.
Forty years after making his first zombie film, Romero seems to be losing his touch. 2005’s “Land of the Dead” was a boring, apocalyptic foray into the world of the undead that failed to break any new ground, and “Diary” just tries too hard to be relevant. The Internet boom happened too long ago to feel fresh to viewers who have been using the Web for years. Then again, a stale zombie movie about MySpace and blogs might be expected from an almost 70-year-old director.
Romero fans would be wise to stick with Romero’s more successful classic films, “Night of the Living Dead” and the two “Dawn of the Dead” movies.
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