Diary of the Dead

I love zombies. Not in the creepy Internet I-want-to-have-sex-with-zombies way, but in the way a man loves a fine cigar or the sound of his arch-enemy’s skull being crushed beneath a fresh tire.

I’ve watched most zombie movies, I’ve played zombie computer and video games, I’ve read zombie books and listened to the audiobook versions of the zombie books. (Consider this an invitation to our four readers to send me links to awesome zombie things I might not have seen or heard.)

The previous two paragraphs, aside from making the word ‘zombie’ look really weird as I type it, should serve to illustrate just how much I enjoy the genre of shambling corpses biting people in the neck and shoulders. It is this love of zombies that makes my disappointment with Diary of the Dead all the more bitter in my dried-out brain-seeking mouth.

Before I hurt the feelings of the people responsible for Diary, I should take the time to say the following: high-five, SFX people! Your zombies and gore were pretty darn good; I was delighted by much of the viscera flying around the screen. Pat yourselves on the back with the dismembered arm you keep around to creep out people who venture into your dank workshops. With those accolades out of the way, onto the movie I guess.

Diary of the Dead follows the completely unlikable Jason, a budding documentarian who currently occupies himself with making a horror movie about a mummy. As he and his bland pals film, the zombie outbreak begins, much to everyone’s relief. Now instead of starring in another low-budget crapfest, they can be horribly killed! Phew! Jason decides to scrap his horror movie and instead make a documentary about the real-life horrors occurring all around him.

Jason’s equally unappealing girlfriend Debra acts as the narrator to the movie. She likes criticising Jason for his unrelenting adherence to his role as a camera, but at least she doesn’t have to film Debra looking awkwardly into the camera. And boy, does Debra look into the camera a lot. Awkwardly. As if she’s…aware…that’s she being super-meta. Or…

Anyway, there are a bunch of other stereotypical jerks along for this ride (don’t mess with Texas! I’m drunk n’ British, I’m inexplicably angry! etc.), and the Christian girl who’s driving them around shoots herself in the head after she runs over some zombies - apparently because she feels something called…uh…remorse? One of those weird new-agey emotions, I don’t know. Like all Christians she totally sucks at committing suicide, so now they have to drive her partially aerated ass to the hospital. As fans of the zombie doomsday scenario are all too aware, you do NOT want to go to a hospital as it’s basically ground zero. More people die.

Throughout this movie, we’re treated to a good ol’ Romero-style hamfist of social commentary. Because in the end, are we really any SHUT UP. How about we focus on decent acting and writing instead of smashing the audience in the face with a retread of our disconnected and apathetic society’s disregard for the blah blah blah look at a table-breaking picture of a zombie:

So here are the two main problems I have with Diary of the Dead, which I will list below.

1) The acting.

It’s pretty hard to get the stumbling corpses to be more engaging than your protagonists, but congratulations! You reached that undead rainbow!

I guess the professor was alright, and I enjoyed the Amish guy with his dynamite and Wile E. Coyote antics. Outside of those two notable exceptions, all the actors were either painfully amateurish or just plain douchebags. Trust me on the douchebag part - we know our own.

2) The writing.

Everyone take a breath. Here is a piece of dialogue from the movie. Ok. Jesus Christ. Here we go.

“It used to be…us against us. Now it’s us against them.”

“He was right, us against them. Except they…are us.

Try saying that out loud. Find a friend. Say the first part and have them say the second. Notice how it’s impossible to avoid sounding like a rambling jackass?

I’ve avoided reading other reviews of this movie, because as you might be aware, I am the only critic that matters. More importantly, I just know I’ll be treated to a bunch of rigmarole (and I don’t even know what that is) about how the Internet age allows for this detachment from what’s on the screen and how the characters in Diary are representative of disaffected youth and so forth. This is an interesting topic no doubt, but I’d prefer it if these painfully salient points were approached with a tad more subtlety than a flaming zombie jumping from a highway overpass while holding a placard that reads “SOCIAL DISCOURSE” or whatever. Instead of subtlety we get to listen to Debra explaining the shit out of every little detail.

There are very few movies that can benefit from narration, and Diary is certainly not one of them.

Show, don’t tell.

And by show, I mean show me awesome zombie hordes tearing a city to the ground, not some wankers verbally wanking in an RV.

4/10

–scott