Diary of the Dead. Directed by George A. Romero. Written by George A. Romero. Release Date: 7 March 2008 (UK). Country of Production: United States. Key Cast: Michelle Morgan (Debra Moynihan), Joshua Close (Jason Creed), Shawn Roberts (Tony Ravello).
I will begin by letting you know right off the bat that I love zombie movies. It's a strange, wonderful sub-genre that never, ever leaves me unsatisfied. It's either horrifying and awesome or hilarious and awesome. The idea of human beings more or less inexplicably eating each other is a terrifying prospect. When a zombie movie works, it combines the supernatural paranoia of a classic, superstition-driven horror with the modern terror of extreme person-on-person violence. When working poorly, its a campy record of some unfortunate grad students limping around and moaning. Either way, worth a viewing.
Romero walks the line between badass and ridiculous in his latest movie. His first three "Dead" films are untouchable in many ways, but after Land of the Dead George had ground to make up. Being that the dead are handily the victors in Land, one notices the imbalance of zombie and human kills. The occasional zombie is shot, but its the human beings who die in truly grotesque fashion. In Diary, Romero swings the pendulum back, giving us your standard neck and arm bites while it is the zombies who receive the more inventive death blows. Perhaps it's mandatory to try and up the death ante, but I must admit Romero walked a thin line here. Acid head? Murder-suicide with a scythe? I'm skeptical.
More to the point, the most striking thing about Romero's latest film is the somewhat disconcerting fact that the whole thing is shot first-person from character perspective. I was wary, but in the end the movie is shot more or less how it would have been anyway. The character's presence is really only felt when it suited a scare or to pound home Romero's relentless message, which I will come to momentarily. I was frankly impressed that he was able to pull it off without it becoming a nuisance.
What was bothersome, though, was Romero's highly self-conscious social commentary. Romero successfully uses the first-person style to alienate the viewer from Jason, who is more or less the main character. He's the visual narrator, even if Debra is the one with the actual voice-over. Romero goes on to highlight the over-saturation of communication technology in the film with constant television and computer displays. He further fosters a distrust in these information sources with unscrupulous television edits and distorted internet messages.
This would all be fine--even downright interesting--if it weren't for the unbearably heavy-handed direct addresses of Debra and the other characters which drive the point explicitly into the viewer like a spike. The professor character's poor excuse for an Alan Rickman impression is particularly obscene. I am an enormous fan of subtlety, and its this kind of outright exposition that really grates me. The last scene is absolutely loathsome, where Debra asks us in narration if humanity is even worth saving as a blood tear runs down an abused zombie's cheek. Did someone litter body parts somewhere? What the fuck are you talking about? Yes! Kill all of them!
As far as zombie movies go, though, it isn't bad. I admire Romero for sticking to his guns on the issue of slow zombies. While 28 Days Later has made the fast zombie all the rage, Romero manages to make a creepy movie with the same old fashioned zombie shuffle. I wish, on the other hand, that he would reinvest in physical gore effects. I'm sure it's cheaper and faster to use CGI for the more complicated kills, but its painfully obvious and lazy to boot. If I'm gonna see the flaws in your effects, you should at least earn them. I'd rather watch spaghetti sauce drip out of a wound than red pixels.
Absolutely see this film. If nothing else, the world owes Romero a few dollars each for creating and continuing a tradition of horror that has enriched the genre and inspired millions of teenage boys to secretly devise in complete earnest how to survive the zombiepocalypse. Do any of us have contingency plans for thwarting Scream Guy? I didn't think so.
2 comments:
I agree wholeheartedly that the world (especially concerning zombie flicks) owes Romero at least a few dollars and an hour or two of our time, and I must say, d'Artagnan, that for someone who loves subtlety, zombie movies are an interesting passion to have... ;) Perhaps the messages of his films are supposed to strike you like a scythe to the forehead, or grind into your brain like you're having a fully charged AED placed on your temples...?
This film was released about the same time as Cloverfield, and this first-person shooting technique is an interesting style that's been making waves in Hollywood lately. For instance, in early episodes of The Office, the shaky, handheld camera look transcends to the point where the cameraman becomes a character with influence on the scene. Also, in SciFi's latest space opus, Battlestar Galactica, the camera shakes and has manual zooms and focus even in the fully CG space flight scenes.
Is there such a dire need for the audience to make the leap of disbelief that we must imagine ourselves holding the camera? Are the days of Indiana Jones riding across the Pacific Ocean on top of a submarine gone for good? Furthermore, should we, the scrutinizing bloggers of this digital generation, carry some of the responsibility for this trend? As Michael Ian Black might say: Here's hoping I blew your mind all over your face.
-PT
Interesting interpretation of the documentary-style camera work. I don't know if the first-person look in Cloverfield or Diary is indicative of a need for audience interaction. Even in the Office, though you never see the crew, it is acknowledged in the world of the story that the person holding the camera is a character.
In the horror genre, I think it's more of a clever way to add a journalistic credibility to an outright unbelievable story. Your Battlestar example is more intriguing. The use of subjective camera effects where traditionally you would want an invisible look is an interesting trend.
Perhaps it is an attempt to subliminally immerse the audience in the story. If that's true, it's kind of a reversal of traditional wisdom. Is it that the static camera treats the film too much like a text, therefore separating the audience as pure spectator? But couldn't the subjective camera work also alienate the viewer with the intrusion of the camera? Hmm.
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