Diary of the Dead

Director: George A Romero

Starring: Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Shawn Roberts

The zombie genre ‘resurrection’ (no pun intended) in the last few years has brought back one of the most influential names in the genre- George A. Romero. This, the fifth in his series of ‘…Dead’ films shows what happens on a night where a group of amateur documentary filmmakers are caught up in the terror of a full scale zombie invasion.

Much like a combination of Danny Boyles ‘28 Days Later’ and more recently, ‘Cloverfield’, Diary of the Dead follows a group of film school students, headed by the ambitious Jason Creed, who head out into the woods to make a horror movie. Before you can say ‘Blair Witch’ zombies start attacking them left and right. The crew is desperate to both escape and to record what is happening. Media news coverage is unreliable and fragmented even as more and more of the students fall prey to the ravenous zombies. News reports giving mainstream coverage of the crisis are narrated by famous names such as Stephen King, Quentin Tarantino and Simon Pegg.

Romero has created what many are saying is his greatest work, showing a mix of old school horror shocks, with the added terror of it being from a first person perspective; eschewing the Blair Witch technique of using a psychological threat. This is not a film for the faint hearted. The gore comes thick and fast, and should not disappoint fans of previous films, as well as pleasing the most ardent of horror fans. The action is underlined with Romero’s social commentary on a world gone wrong, and how everyday people try to deal with it.

If you’re a fan of horror films that offers you a bit more than beautiful teens being stalked by a fisherman with a grudge, then ‘Diary of the Dead’ is well worth a watch; a worthy addition to the genre, and horror cinema as a whole.

Tom Harvey