George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
by George A. Romero
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Amy Lalonde, Joe Dinicol, Josh Close, Michelle Morgan, Shawn RobertsDirector: George A. Romero
Brand: Wellspring Media INC
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-20
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 81173
Studio: The Weinstein Company
Product features:
- From legendary frightmaster George A. Romero comes one of the most daring, hypnotic and absolutely vital horror films of the past decade (fangoria.com). Romero continues his influential Dead series, this time focusing on a terrified group of college film students who record the pandemic rise of flesh-eating zombies while struggling for their own survival. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR
Movie Reviews of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
Movie Review: ROMERO REMAINS ON TOP
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1968, unknown director George Romero and a group of friends put together what has been hailed as one of the greatest horror films ever made. Unfortunately none of them ever saw much in the way of money from the film's distributor, but they've made up for it since. The movie was NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
Now Romero returns to his roots with his latest excursion into the world of zombies with DIARY OF THE DEAD. Taking place during the same time period as the first film (not '68 but in the zombie timeline or when the zombie plague first begins), Romero gives it a fresh look and turn.
A group of college students are out shooting a horror film, a mummy movie, when they get word that the outbreak has begun. A news station is airing footage of 3 murder victims who rise off their gurneys and attack the EMTs sent to pick them up. The students pack up and head for the dorms.
When they arrive, they find that no one has remained and decide to make the trek to their own homes as well. Fortunately one of them has a motor home and they set out. The entire movie is filmed as if it were a documentary ala BLAIR WITCH/CLOVERFIELD. These are film students after all. But the main person in charge, Jason (Joshua Close) is so detached from all that he films that he never sees until too late what is going on around him.
The group consists of Jason's girlfriend Deb (Michelle Morgan) whose home they are trying to reach first, Eliot (Joe Dinicol). Tony (Shawn Roberts), Tracy (Amy LaLonde), Gordo (Chris Violette) and their film instructor Professor Maxwell (Scott Wentworth). Each has their own part to play in the story and the acting is never an issue. They all do a great job.
Central to the story is Deb who's constantly worried about her family. At the same time, she draws further away from Jason as he focuses solely on his film, explaining that it's important that someone document what is happening for others to see. The problem is that in so doing, he detaches himself from reality and from those around him.
The film move at a steady pace as the group encounters everything from their first zombie on the road to zombies in an abandoned hospital. The reality of death and of the dead rising is handled by each in their own way as survival instinct kick into overdrive and they move forward. We watch as humans decided not to sit and take it, but to move forward with the hope that something, somewhere, their old lives remain intact.
Fans of the series of films Romero has made know up front that the zombie invasion will change things. While zombies make up the low percentage of those walking at the beginning, eventually they outnumber the living by the time his last film LAND OF THE DEAD took place. What we see here is a precursor to what is to come.
Some say that the handheld look seems lacking. I thought that it added to the story. It made a statement about the use of cameras from news footage to kids falling off skateboards in clips online. People take themselves out of the picture and seek only entertainment value at the expense of others. They do detach themselves from reality. And it's sad to think that in so doing, they drop us a notch down the evolutionary scale.
Romero has taken what could have become a lame genre filled with the same old same old and given it an injection of something new. The film stands on its own or fits well into the series started over 40 years ago by the same man. It has its share of scares, of commentary and of human interests. It's like seeing it all over again for the first time and it holds your interest from beginning to end.
Summary of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
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