Now on Video: Diary of the Dead

I post this in honor of the time I tried to introduce Jay to the world of George A. Romero, and it fell flat. In this world, the dead do not stay dead. They rise. They attack. They eat.

Romero's first film, Night of the Living Dead, never identified the dead as zombies. Romero even thought of them more as ghouls, but that doesn't matter. The first film crossed social boundaries and began a theme that permeates all of his movies: the dead are just a reflection of the living. In all of his movies, there are a group of heroes trying to survive, only to have the efforts ultimately ruined by the living. Sure, the dead always pose the threat, but it is the living that is the bigger threat. The dead physically prey on the living in the same way that the living preys on each other. Well, perhaps not quite the same – in the case of the dead, when I say prey, I mean eat. The only way to re-kill the dead is to destroy the brain (that's Romero's rule…many have copied it).

Dawn of the Dead amped up the gore and the action, pitting four survivors in Monroeville Mall, just outside of Pittsburgh. Day of the Dead was almost too loquacious as the world was almost completely overrun by the dead. Scientist and Military try to domesticate the dead, and they begin to show signs of understanding. By the time of Land of the Dead, the humans have retreated into cities and send out raiding parties for supplies. They have tried to forget about the problem by isolation. Unfortunately, some zombies are beginning to show signs of intelligence.

As each film progressed, each one topped the previous with makeup and gore. But, they still retain that feel that Romero is an independent and works outside of the Hollywood Machine. The latter film was extremely polished.

Within two years of Land, Romero released the latest film, Diary of the Dead. This film is of the "found footage" variety: think Blair Witch or Cloverfield. However, the film has been edited together by one of the protagonist of the film and presented as a finished product of amateur film. Romero asks the question: what if this phenomenon of the dead returning happened today in our world? With so many people carrying around video recording devices and able to upload to YouTube, could it be kept a secret? Until the final moments, the film takes itself fairly seriously and portrays the dead in a much more hyper-realistic fashion than the other films. The makeup is subtle and, thankfully, we are not subjected to the typical disembowelments that are always shown since Dawn. The makeup can be subtle because the dead are not yet decayed (in Land they are referred to as Stenches).

Diary of the Dead is possibly my favorite in the series since the original film.