Netflix: Diary of the Dead

Jon and I have Netflix and we get 2 movies at a time – one from my list and one from his. We have some movies that we both like, but we also have a lot of movies that we disagree on. I would say my taste in movies is better because I had a minor in Cinema Studies in college. Jon would mostly say that I like bad movies. We usually end up watching 4 – 8 movies a month, so I thought it'd be nice to each write our own review of the movie to see how our opinions differ.


Film: Diary of the Dead
Year: 2007
Director: George Romero
Whose Netflix Queue: Allie's



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Allie's Review:

Rating - 3.5 out of 5

I love thrillers and horror movies, but I want to see some real violence and gore when I watch one! I usually avoid the slew of PG-13 horror movies that come out because they can't really swear, show much nudity, or really chop someone's head off with a chainsaw with that rating. So when "Diary of the Dead" was rated R, I knew I wanted to see it. The movie is directed by George Romero, the famous zombie movie director. He directed the original "Night of the Living Dead" in 1968, followed by "Dawn of the Dead" in '78, after which came by "Day of the Dead" in '85, "Land of the Dead" in 2005, and now "Diary of the Dead" in 2007. I haven't seen them all, but I have seen lots of zombie movies! Zombies are freaking freaky. Nuff said.

"Diary of the Dead" was a typical zombie movie set in present day, but added an interesting element of technology. The film is supposed to be a documentary made by some college kids who were alive during this zombie outbreak. Throughout the movie they upload their footage to MySpace and watched other people's experiences with the zombies on YouTube. The tagline for the film is the ironic and dual meaning "Shoot the Dead." The spent the whole movie shooting zombies... with bullets and with cameras.

There were some cliché characters and the plot was fairly predictable, but I was scared by the zombies and cared if the characters lived or died. Overall, an entertaining movie with some good zombie action!


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Jon's Review:

Rating - 3 out of 5

This film is an interesting twist on the traditional zombie film from the father of zombie films himself, George A. Romero, with a twist of tween angstiness. It's best described as Night of the Living Dead meets Cloverfield meets, unfortunately, Scream. Cinematography-obsessed Jason (incidentally the cameras that Jason and friends used were the source of all the film's footage) and his rag-tag group of friends go on the road to escape the zombie panic in Pittsburgh, PA. Eventually, as always, the plague of undeath catches up to them and, one by one, they become the walking dead. I personally felt this film was a bit too familiar. The only exception is the 21st century angle of the underground journalists - bloggers, video bloggers, etc - trying to inform the public of what's "really going on" while the mainstream media refuses to go into specifics. Even that, I felt was not explored as fully as it could have been.