Movie Review: Diary of the Dead - Page 2

"Speaking of zombies," I began to say, verbalizing my thought.

"What's that?" asked Zombos, going for thirds.

"Why don't we watch Romero's Diary of the Dead. Zombies and Italian Ices go together well, you know.

He looked at me for a second; I was not sure if out of perplexity or sudden brain freeze. "Capital idea!" he said. We loaded up with a generous round of Italian Ice flavors before heading to the cinematorium.

Only George Romero can mix the insatiable appetites of zombies and mass media into visually and emotionally pleasing, melt-in-your-mouth flavors of terror borne from helplessness and an uncertain future. With ostensibly empowering digital technology at their disposal, his survivors in Diary of the Dead can only use it to record, for posterity, humanity's fall from grace enveloping them, eventually pushing them into their last refuge, a panic room built for the wealthy family now lurching alongside the rest of the undead. It is the single-minded, unceasing use of the mouth (zombies munching on human chew-toys) contrasted against the unblinking public eye (documenting "the truth" to upload to YouTube) through which Romero seasons his apocalypse with the question "to what purpose for either?"

While the familiar zombie cinematic landscape is directed all too often with repetitive swatches of gory masticatory closeups and ever more agile, superhuman undead predators acting like werewolves, Romero still keeps it simple: the futile struggle between living and undead is always his focal point, and his characters--the breathing ones--struggle as best their emotional mindsets will let them. His zombies remain, as always, fearful and pitiable at the same time: pitiable because their mindless hunger can never be satisfied, but fearful as it still remains a very stress-inducing habit for the rest of frightened humanity. This time around, his dead-that-won't-die are a shade different: they are more malevolent in appearance and intent, and a bit more spry when their next meal is in biting distance.

A clue to Romero's continued mastery of the genre he slam-dunked into theaters with Night of the Living Dead is given when spoiled rich kid Ridley's family winds up in the swimming pool after becoming consumers of a different kind. The water-blurred image of his mom and dad, girlfriend, and domestic staff standing at the bottom of the pool is sublime macabre poetry only Romero would take the time to write with his camera.

Article Author: ILoz Zoc

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTT D), expiring writer of Zombos Closet of Horror Blog, and valet to Zombos, the noted B-movie horror actor (to his few remaining and decaying fans).

Visit ILoz Zoc's author page — ILoz Zoc's Blog