Romero writes a better diary

Sometimes it’s hard to value something unless you have something else to compare it to. The first time I saw Diary of the Dead, sadly I wasn’t very impressed. I was really looking forward to watching it, being Romero’s new zombie baby and all.


But I got around to watching Diary of the Dead in the wake of such movies as the Dawn of the Dead remake and 28 weeks later. So at the end...it all just seemed a bit under whelming.

When I heard of Zombie Diaries, I was very excited. I for one am a huge fan of British horror flicks and British zombie movies in particular. So I figured Zombie Diaries would save the idea of a POV zombie adventure for me.

Man was I wrong.

Zombie Diaries is a Cloverfield style zombie movie. But you know how a lot of these zombie movies focus on the struggling human drama to add to the story? This thing had too much drama and too little zombies for my liking. First of all...no one watches a B grade Zombie movie for the acting or the drama. We wanna see zombies, no matter how poorly done, tearing the cheap B-movie flesh off of people.

...no one gets attacked in this film for a good half hour or so into the movie. Sure we see lots of zombies... but they were too busy mopping around.

When we finally do get to see some action... it wasn’t as graphic as I have come to expect from British zombie movies, or any zombie movie for that matter. Even the cheapest most lamest of zombie movies will dump its budget into getting you some bloody and gutsy kills.

Don’t get me wrong... people do get eaten. But at the end of the movie I felt Zombie Diaries was a bit too conservative with its zombies.

Zombie Diaries

The movie did have a very cool and very intense night scene, with our survivors running past bloody hungry zombies with nothing but the light from their camera to guide their way. But then they had another night scene ...and then did it again...and again...and then again... and then “o lets use night vision!”

We get it! Zombies in the dark are creepy! Now do something else!

Plus the narrative jumps between different groups of survivors to show how every one is dealing with the new zombie situation. This makes for interesting story telling, but the first time it happened, I wasn’t sure who I was looking at. Or rather whose camera I was looking through.

In the end all the stories of the survivors we see, try to come together for a nice pieced up conclusion... but by now I was trying to remember where I had left my copy of Diary of the Dead.

Diary of the Dead

If I hadn’t seen Diary of the living dead...then this movie may have been a little better for me(Even though Zombie Diaries was released before diary of the dead). It was mildly entertaining... but I felt if I hadn’t seen Zombie Diaries, I would not have missed much. One thing that Zombie Diaries does do pretty good is give you the reality feel. After the end product of all the editing in Diary of the dead, they might as well have shot a straight zombie movie.

I guess in the end Zombie Diaries is the Deep Impact to Romero's Armageddon. Just watch them both...as I'm sure many of you already have.