Diary of the Dead (2008) Review

By Mitchell Dean

Rated: R
Running Time: 95 minutes
Directed by: George A. Romero
Written by: George A. Romero
Cast: Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Shawn Roberts
Opens: February 15, 2008

Rating: The Beat Down (Horrible)

Poor George A. Romero; he is holding on to a career that has left him a very long time ago. Diary of the Dead comes off feeling like an old musician, who can barely speak and barely move their hand to play the guitar, performing a curtain call.

Where Romero once had so much to say about society as a whole, now he speaks to the masses about things we have already heard over and over again, for example; the media’s ability to spin a story; the publics fascination with gore and death; social commentary about our voyeuristic addictions which we feed with reality television and YouTube. These have been beat to death within modern media.

This C Movie garners about as much interest as the next Paris Hilton news story. It’s old news and there are new gunslingers in town doing it far better. Romero fails where J.J. Abrams very recently succeeded beyond belief.

“Go away!!! Rheee-eh!!”

Romero gives us a story set and shot in a faux documentary style. Where there was no way to compare Cloverfield with The Blair Witch Project, this one is right in line, right down to the horrible acting, nauseating lack of story and structure and below low budget feel. The documentary “The Death of Death” tells us that one day; the dead just began to rise up and attack the living, creating more of the undead. The director of the documentary is a film student and he, along with a group of friends, attempts to make it home from school. Along the way there are plenty of bad campy moments, bad special effects and even worse acting.

THE GOOD

Nada, nothing! The Entertaining Brain demands that the 95 minutes spent in the theater, be refunded by Romero.

THE BAD AND THE UGLY

The whole film is bad and ugly. George Romero could have left well enough alone and gone out as the B movie king, now he will be remembered for a flop well beyond what he could have ever foreseen. It’s too bad; because Romero used to have a lot of talent, for making society take notice of the ills they were committing upon themselves.

Let this one pass by everyone. I felt dirty as I walked out of the theater. It must have been how Paul Reubens felt walking out of that Sarasota, Florida adult movie theater in ‘91.

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