Movie Review: Diary of the Dead - Page 3

We see this unfolding "Death of Death" mostly through the camera lens of Jason Creed (Joshua Close); first as he and his film school friends shoot a horror film in the desolate woods at night, and later because of his unstoppable goal to record everything. Like the zombies he encounters, he will not be deterred from this goal, although, ultimately, it may prove equally futile. Defending his unstoppable hunger to record and post everything his camera sees to the Internet, it is unclear if he's really sincere about getting the truth out, or more excited about the seventy-thousand plus hits he's getting on YouTube.

News of the plague stops the filming of the "fictional" horror movie and sends everyone to either go home or search for significant others. While Ridley races off to the safety of his family's mansion, the others drive--in their Winnebago (a poor man's Dead Reckoning from Land of the Dead)-- to the desolate university dorm to find Jason's strong-willed girlfriend Debra (Michelle Morgan). Once she's found, her goal is to get back home to her family. Professor Maxwell (Scott Wentworth), a melodramatic boozer mentoring his students, tags along. Maxwell sees everything in broad philosophical strokes tinged with world-weary dramatics, but he does wield a wicked bow and arrow, an elegant weapon for a more civilized time, which fits his temperament and aim well. At any point you expect to hear "tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps forth in this petty pace..." from his lips; instead, he does get in a well-timed "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." And the worst of times keeps getting worse in this season of darkness.

Their first encounter with one toasted marshmallow zombie at a blazing car wreck leaves them shaken and minus one Christian driver, Mary (Tatiana Maslany), who attempts suicide out of guilt thinking she has run over survivors at the accident scene. Her friends rush her to a desolate hospital. Jason has to plug in when his camera battery starts dying, so he stubbornly stays behind when they go in search of help. Without his camera, Jason is sightless and helpless, and with his camera he isn't much help. Left alone with the dying Mary, who could become a zombie any moment, Jason's nerves begin firing big time.

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