Diary of the Dead (2007)

Diary of the Dead is a film about a student film; unfortunately, it bears many of the marks of a student film itself and not in the ways it intends.

The movie, meant to further explore Romero's apocalyptic vision, is told through various sources of found footage. The film shoots for sincerity, but misses almost every time with near universally bad performances.

This is most apparent in our main couple, meant to be fraught with disagreement. One scene which sees them arguing later in the film is quite unconvincing, as the female lead overacts, and the male lead, while gesturing wildly, remains a bit of a mannequin, incapable of significant facial expression. Another example is when a group member has been bit in a hospital; the performer's attempts at anguish qualify for the worst category of acting available.

The cinematography is poor, feeling sufficiently unsteady but too polished and choreographed to convincingly be found footage. The switch between multiple cameras is also jarring and detracts from the found footage quality, as it gives the impression we can follow concurrent scenes without consequence.

There are similar problems with the sound of the film, which do not seem consistent with the constraints of the genre. Everyone seems to be miked up, with crystal clear dialogue heard from almost any distance regardless of the character in question. The narration provided by our monotone female lead is downright grating to listen to and further disrupts any chance for the footage to organically develop.

The film is also deeply cheesy when it means to be serious, such as when we see a scene of an elderly couple being accosted by enforcers; we should feel alarmed, but the acting makes the scene funny rather than horrifying.

Standing in contrast with his early zombie films, Diary of the Dead is not only a failure as a film but an indictment of Romero’s ability to modernize his own apocalyptic vision for later audiences.