First let me get this out of the way, I am a huge Romero fan in fact I think the man is one of cinemas true greats. This film however is not one of his best. In fact it's pretty much one of the worst things he's ever made. The idea starts off good enough, a group of student filmmakers making a horror film hear about the dead rising and decide to travel home to be with their families. OK so far, they then decide to make a documentary of the whole thing so they can upload it on the internet to tell the world the truth. Starting to slide a bit. They all hitch up in a camper van with an English alcoholic professor and set off with the cameras glued to their faces and this is the film we see. Oh dear. Where did the camper van/motorhome come from?, why would they take the professor? Why did Romero think this would be a good idea? The cast is filled with all the college clichés you can think of. the jock, his glamorous girlfriend, the computer nerd, the weird girl (who thankfully blows her brains out early on) and so on. The film starts off slowly and doesn't really pick up any pace. Some of the deaths were quite inventive but compared to Dawn, Day and Land (I'm not bringing Night into it because that didn't really have many special FX) they were pretty poor and the gore count was ridiculously low. Some of the scenes were so unbelievable, I mean when would you just stand there and film your girlfriend being attacked by a zombie? I don't care how much you want to document things, it'd never happen! So far every one of George's zombie films have ended with a big massacre with the zombies biting and tearing and so on, this however has on of THE weakest endings of ANY horror film. EVER. They stock up and hide in a panic room the end. Oh dear God. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed in a film i was so looking forward to. Fans will point to the social satire and black humour that run through the film with all the subtlety of a combine harvester on ice as being it's saving grace but for a horror film, a zombie horror film, by the master of genre it is a very poor effort.
Review of Diary of the Dead
