When a friend comes up to you and tells you he has something for you but the only way you're going to get it before he watches it, is for you to rub his feet and suck on his big toe, you just know he has something good. I laughed and asked him "Come on man... just tell me what it is." He tells me, "I got a copy of Diary of the Dead...sup."



After gargling some mouthwash and wiping my mouth, I stuck Diary of the Dead into my laptop with Zombie glee pouring out my brraaaainnnss. The film begins with one of the best opening scenes to a zombie movie in my opinion. A new cast is filming a gruesome murder scene, to only witness the dead rise and begin to attack. When the lady zombie gets up, you can see her eyes fixated on the camera man from the start, but he's looking at another zombie mainly and sometimes you can see the female getting closer and then BAM in your face. And she looks wicked thanks to the zombie makeup that does not go over the top.



We then come across some college students (our main attraction) who are filming what I'm pretty sure is a low budget Mummy movie. During a break to fix makeup, they learn about how the dead are rising. Whether it's real or not, everyone decides to go home. Two head to the `Mummy's' house (more like mansion), the rest decide to go get the director's g/f and then everyone at once head to their parents houses which are, thankfully, on the way to someone else's parents house. While on the road, they are basically safe, but it's during the stops that the troubles begin.



The story was great and the zombies were fantastic. I can see what Romero was doing here and I totally enjoyed it, but there were things that just really bothered me about the movie and I'll got into a little detail for them



1. The acting was atrocious. The movie is supposed to be filmed like a documentary, but the acting seemed like acting. None of it had a real feel to me. I saw actors, trying to act like, they weren't acting. And bad acting doesn't bother me, it's just the fact that it kept taking me out of what I was supposed to be feeling, and that was that I was watching a documentary.



2. The camera. The documentary feel doesn't bother me. I liked how Cloverfied was filmed because I KNEW that it was supposed to FEEL like a documentary. And that's what it felt like. This though felt more staged. To me Diary felt more like a videogame the way it was filmed. Like I was watching a rail camera.. It felt like HUD was actually behind the camera in Cloverfield. Jason Creed, well, he felt more like a camera machine and not a human. Yeah I'm sure this helped a lot with the shaky camera problem that a lot of people hated about Clovefield and made them run out to get Dramamine pills for, but it took away from the REALNESS that I believe Romero wanted for the movie. What I meant about the rail camera above was that it felt like certain scenes were choreographed to give us a scare or put action into the scene. Sure I know ALL scenes in ALL movies are choreographed, but they don't FEEL like it. Hopefully you get what I'm saying, I might be having trouble trying to explain it.



3. CG was used. I couldn't believe this. On little things such as gunshots to the head cg was used. Blood splatter from the back of the head was CG. That really pissed me off cause I hate when CG is used for things that special effects artists can CLEARLY make look better with actual real life blood packets and whatever other cool gadgets they got. There was one scene where the CG was used correctly and looked really good and it involved acid. Sure we've seen acid scenes before with make-up effects or whatever, but this looked really good. But it doesn't make up for the other countless CG effects that could've been easily done the good old fashioned way.



4. The editing on some scenes made me scratch my head in befuddlement. I get the fact that Romero is giving us a lesson on how we are using camera, phone cameras, whatever else is out there gadget wise, to film everything around us now. But I don't need that to ruin a good scene for me. In one part, the Winnebago the crew is driving, runs over a group of zombies. Well right when we are getting ready to see a nice scene, the camera switches over to one of the camera phones somebody was using. So we don't get the good sound or video we were witnessing. It goes to a very crappy looking and sounding shot of these zombies getting run over. I was pissed at that.



In the end, I get the message. The media. The constant updating of OUR lives. The youtubes and MySpaces. The car wreck syndrome. The `not really being there feel' when you are behind the camera. I get it. But when I'm watching a zombie movie, I'm watching it for the zombies first and..well..second. The message can go in there somewhere also, but I REALLY could care less. I want my carnage. I want my blood. I want my gore. I want my feel of hopelessness. I got what I wanted, but I honestly think Romero could've done better. Will I watch this again? Hell yes. It's better than a LOT of the zombie movies out now. I will own it also and spend the extra dough on the blu-ray version as well. I think EVERYONE should at least rent it and give it a try. Just don't going in it's going to be blockbuster quality because it's just not... in my opinion.



To my zombie and gore friends, please don't hate me for giving this 3 stars... lol. I just have to rate it how I feel.







P.S. The scene looking out of the barn via the camera was very cool looking.