Diary of the Dead

I’ll admit it. It’s a sadly uncommitted zombie defense activist who hasn’t viewed Diary of the Dead before now. What can I say, I’ve been busy. I know, I know. Most folks with any common sense know that zombie apocalypse preparation is a far more pressing priority than any of those day to day domestic activities that occupy our lives. But hey, if I want to survive, I’m going to need the support of my better half, and unless there’s a planet full of zombies that I can direct her wrath towards, it’s in my best interest to keep her in good spirits. Regardless, I’m pleased to report that I’ve finally remedied this short-coming and viewed George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead.

*Warning* Spoilers

To start, I’ll gladly state that I have been very excited about this film for a long time. I may not entirely agree with all of Mr. Romero’s theories about the zombie apocalypse, or particularly love all of his work, but his films are the bedrock of the genre, and new contributions are to be cheered and applauded. That said, Diary was fun, but it wasn’t quite all that I hoped for. 

I was very excited by the prospect of a zombie flick shot like a documentary by folks in the midst of the initial outbreak. I was imagining something really gritty and raw. Lots of shaky handheld footage and poorly composed out of focus shots. Unfortunately, that amateur (or even documentary) footage feel didn’t really come across to me. In fairness, perhaps that wasn’t really what Mr. Romero was going for. The characters were film students, and they did have some decent camera equipment with them. Rough and shaky may have been what I wanted, but I suppose that it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense if everything looked like it had been shot by some kid with a cell phone camera. The film also explicitly stated that it was edited and narrated after the events, so I guess that a more produced feel was to be expected. The film was likely just as Mr. Romero intended, but I was hoping for something more along the lines of the credits footage at the end of Dawn of the Dead 2004, or perhaps Cloverfield (but maybe with a slightly steadier hand holding the camera).

That small disappointment aside, there was a lot in this film that was pretty damn entertaining. For one, Mr. Romero’s social commentary was right out there in the open, nothing subtle about it this time. It might be said that the underlying social commentary in his previous films wasn’t particularly subtle either, but this time he had a character explicitly stating his ideas as part of the narration. I love a good film that keeps things under the surface, hinting, but making the audience work to interpret the message. But hell, I won’t complain about a little directness and clarity from time to time.

[NON-CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS]

Regarding the lighter side of an undead apocalypse, Mr. Romero was quite successful in the delivery of a good dose of zombie combat hilarity. I’m not entirely convinced of its real world practicality, but we were treated to the rather entertaining application of a pair of those emergency room paddles ( that they use to jump-start flat-lining patients’ hearts ) to either side of a zombie’s head. It had damn amusing but not entirely effective results. A jar of hydrochloric acid smashed against another zombie’s head had magnificent results in the film, but again, I’m not sure of its value outside the world of film. We also witnessed some pretty hilarious zombie-battling combat technique on the part of an old Amish farmer who’s supply of dynamite, and masterful use of of scythe, kept our protagonists alive a bit longer than they would have otherwise.

However, if there is one moment that could be said to make the entire film worth watching, it would be a bit of footage involving a children’s birthday party, a not so happy birthday girl, and a clown that single-handedly proves why those white-faced, red-nosed, crazy-haired entertainers are so damn scary. I don’t want to disappoint by building this up to much, for it was just a short clip with an even briefer defining moment, but it was a damn hilarious moment of beauty.

[OUTBREAK DOCUMENTATION]

Moving on from the film’s lighter side, it probably goes without saying that it also had a rather unhealthy dose of survivor idiocy. The first and biggest example of this was the whole practice of walking around in a zombie outbreak with a video camera. I can understand the compulsion to document, and the desire to show the world what is happening, but don’t just stand there filming away when your buddy is wrestling with a zombie right in front of you. Drop the damn camera and help! A certain amount of freezing up and not knowing how to act is to be expected. But filming away just for the purpose of documenting is as bad as killing your friend yourself. In the film’s defense, the whole idea of documenting and detachment from what is being filmed is one of the key themes Mr. Romero is asking people to think about. I just hope that no one gets the idea that it would be fun to go all MTV-cameraman when their friends start eating each other.

[SURVIVAL MISTAKES]

Other choices of questionable wisdom include the decision to spend hours on the road trying to reach family, visiting a hospital in the midst of the outbreak chaos, and choosing to leave the relative safety of the armed group they found fortifying the warehouse. There are caveats to all of these of course. For one, you’d be hard pressed to find many folks who wouldn’t willing accept some level of risk in order to rejoin their families and loved ones. Most of us are social creatures by nature, and being the sole survivor in a world filled with the dead doesn’t sound that appealing. Next, where the hell are you supposed to find treatment for a serious injury other than at a hospital? Like before, most people are going to want to do everything they can to help an direly injured friend, and the most promising possibility will be the one place we know medical professionals to be located. Regarding the group fortifying the warehouse, the choice to stay would have been a gamble a well. Despite the rather reluctant generosity of their leader, there is no saying how the dynamics of that group may have evolved as time wore on, supplies grew short, and the surrounding ocean of undead got deeper and deeper.

[INITIAL CHAOS]

Finally, across the board for all of these, it’s fair to say that in the early stages of an outbreak very few people will fully comprehend the gravity of the situation. No doubt if one sees a bunch of rather dead looking people attacking and cannibalizing the living, it will likely alert us the fact that we should vacate the immediate vicinity, but there isn’t any way of knowing the full scope of the situation. Our immediate instincts will push us to flee, but it won’t even cross most folks’ minds that the situation might actually be worse in the direction they’re traveling.

[LONG-TERM DEFENSE]

Lastly, I just have to criticize the painfully poor choices made the the remaining survivors when they reached their friend Ridley’s mansion at the end of the film. True to Ridley’s boasting, the place fully had the potential to be a fortress. It was a huge building with at least some quantity of supplies. There may have been rather sizable stretches of open ground surrounding the mansion, and possibly even a perimeter fence. Why didn’t they make at least some effort to claim and fortify as much ground as possible? Why the hell didn’t they at least fortify the building itself? And why, oh dear God why did they think that locking themselves in that tomb of a panic room was a good idea? This was the end of the movie. They’d all seen what was going on out there. Did they really think that someone was going to come along and rescue them in the next day or two? Yeah, totally ridiculous. I don’t think it was intentional, but it was a pretty fair homage to the panicked idiocy of the fool in the original Night of the Living Dead who was determined to lock himself and his family in the basement of that farm house.

Well, while I don’t think I’m going to start raving about this film anytime soon, it did have some quality moments of zombie hilarity, and it did attempt to broach the interesting topic of how perspective is changed through the view of a video lens. The film wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped it would be, but it was still fun to watch. Just have a few beers first.

Read other George Romero “… of the Dead” posts:

• All those that insist on dissecting zombies will no longer be allowed in the cafeteria until they have washed their hands.
  Day of the Dead
• In a land of the dead, don’t wear headphones.
  Land of the Dead