Watched a few horror films the last week and a tad this weekend when time. One of those films, "George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead". I couldn't remember if I had reviewed here on the blog or not. But being that I am a mega-fan of director George A. Romero I thought I owed to him. Just kidding. I didn't get to see it on it's brief theatrical run here in the DFW area, so I had to settle for the DVD release back in April or May. I watched it and was very annoyed for the first half of it, then it took me in a new direction that I really liked. So I picked it up on Blu-ray for a second look. My first reaction was that I didn't care for it, at least the first half. So my reaction to the film upon second viewing is pretty close to my first reaction. But this time I liked that second half even more. Unlike most horror movies George's flicks are commentaries. This one like Night, Dawn, Day, and Land has a message and for me the message was that our dependence on media from the news, smart phones, and blogs is scary.
Fellow Ft. Worth Filmmaker J. Mitchel Johnson made his film, World Without Waves about a man who is allergic to electricity or technology if you will. And Mitchel should revisit that theme cause its much worse now. Everything coming at us these days is filtered. We don't know the truth anymore. Everyone has a blog and an opinion and a point of view. anyone can re-edit a video and make it work for their point of view. Spin is king. And this is only part of the message George is at work here. If the world was coming to an end would the government tell us what we needed to hear? Probably. Would the real media have any control? Maybe not. This movie tells the story of Zombies beginning to take over. The TV outlets say its a virus, but a filmmaking crew see otherwise. They continue filming and upload the footage through myspace, blogs, etc to try and convey to whoever is listening that the government/press is lying to us. Then others jump on the bandwagon and use whats left of the web to tell their stories of whats going on.
The ending of the film is very haunting and sad. Have you ever had one of those days where you just need to get rid of technology. The computer, the PDA, TV and whatnot. Well our heroes whats left of them end up locking themselves in a house with a safe room surrounded by security cameras displaying nothing but images of Zombies coming in to eat them. Very nice stuff. So the message gets there, but its not so smooth sailing. Using all unknowns actors, the acting is spotty at best. And the level of technology that is employed takes a big hunk of that ole' suspension of disbelief medicine. This is a harder pill to swallow if you are tech savvy. The image too is shot on HD camera, but its too clean looking. Needs to be dirtied up. SO all in all I would recommend Diary if you like George's other Dead films. But don't go in looking for it to be too much like the last 3. This is more in line with Night of the Living Dead. But not to worry George does deliver the red stuff. Although a lot of it is digital red. Not a fan of that personally. So this is my least favorite of the Dead series. Hopefully Island will be better, but this one does have some strong important messages to tell that places it high above the recent slate of Zombie films.
Hope to post a review of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on blu-ray. I'm about halfway through it, and loving every second of it!!! TCM rulZ!
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