Bebo

It should have been obvious that there was something seriously wrong. But when the authorities, or 'The Man' tells you what's happening and everything is ok, you feel safe in that knowledge.

That is of course until you see a man without the lower portion of his face walking toward you. Well that's not technically correct, he DID have his jaw, it was just firmly wedged into his throat, exposing more trachea than I ever wanted or needed to see.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, or maybe it woulda been worse, (I haven't thought it over too much) if I hadn't seen him get hit by a wayward bus, all but disintergrating his head, and then getting up, moments later, seemingly oblivious to anything happening. All the while of course, I'm vomiting into the gutter, over my shoes, jeans and anything else that was in my way. It was as I wiped bile and breakfast off my mouth, it dawned on me that, no, 'The Man' has it wrong, and no, this isn't just another case of bird flu, and no, everything is NOT ok.

Hi, guys,

Lemme tell ya about Diary of the Dead. I love it. It’s the first film since my original Night of the Living Dead that I can say is completely my own.

I’ve been trying to work under-the-radar, with no hype or press, but lately I've started hearing all kinds of shit about “What’s goin' on with Romero?” “What’s with his new film?”

Gimme a break over here! I'm up in Toronto workin' my ass off, making Diary the best it can be. Truth is, I'm having a blast. I've gone home to the kind of filmmaking that I used to do, back in the day.

Diary is a hundred percent independent, made with my partner, Peter Grunwald, and our new friends at Artfire. I haven't had this much freedom since 1968. The cast, of what film critics will probably call “unknowns” (they won’t be for long) is, in my opinion, fuckin' great.

This one comes from my heart. It's not a sequel or a remake. It's a whole new beginning for the dead.

Thanks to all of you who are out there waiting and wondering. You guys, the fans, have always kept me going. Now Diary's keeping me going, night, dawn, and day.

I love this movie. I hope you will, too. I'll be back here from time to time to keep you posted. Stay tuned.

Stay scared.

George A. Romero

Alright, well I'll start right off the bat with, I loved this movie. I will bore you with a synopsis of the movie, cause you can read the plot somewhere else, and I am pretty sure most of you know the plot already. Instead of the movie starting off with saying "George A. Romero's DIARY OF THE DEAD", it begins as a fully cut together documentary about what these students went through for the first few days of the outbreak. The movie has narration, and is told through a variety of cameras, security cameras, self phones, news footage…this makes for an already very interesting watch.

The movie starts out with a great opening scene which grabs you right from the get go, and already you can tell that this is not some Blair Witch knock off. Comparisons to Blair Witch will be thrown right out the window. In DIARY the camera acts as a character in the film, a lot of time I forgot I was watching a documentary esquire movie, and thought I was just watching a film. Instead of shaky cameras, off the cuff improv dialogue, we get a full more theatrical sort of experience. We still watch the whole movie through the POV of the cameras, and this never changes…which leads to some terrifying scenes. I have never found zombie movies scary, but this was quite a creepy film in parts. Most notably the "Hospital Scene", talk about a perfect creep fest…great location, great build up…great pay off.

From the get go, I can assume that this will be a movie that either fans or going to love or hate. It's very much the Romero world; there are little nods to Night and Day. But the overall feeling is something new all to itself, obviously one can compare it to Night, but even that would be a very loose comparison. What really makes this movie work is what you don't see. The film is not a zombie gore fest by any means, not by comparison to Land anyways (But don't worry, DIARY still holds a great deal of signature Romero moments that had the audience up and cheering). There are no huge crowds of zombies roaming around, they are here and there and they still very much are a threat, but still not the scariest. Radio reports and peoples actions really up the paranoia level of the movie, and make it a scarier experience. This is by far the scariest Romero Dead film of the series; it holds a great sense of dread with it.

In the negative department, of which I have very few complaints, I think some of delivery of lines where a little camp. And the staging of a couple scenes definitely played cheesy in a few parts where it should have been serious. Also, there were only a couple CGI moments that took me out of the movie (don't worry, there is no priest zombie in the movie, the CGI is very subtle). But all these complaints are few and far between each other.

All together, DIARY was a very impressive achievement for Mr. Romero, and I hope this film sees the light of day soon, cause I know I can't wait to see it again. I think the social commentary in this movie played stronger and better then it did in the other films. This was a nice touch; it really added to the overall experience, it brought a sense of reality to the whole concept…more so then the other films in my opinion. In conclusion, Romero fans won't be disappointed, the film has his dark humor and great zombie moments laced through out the film. And people looking for more then just cheap thrills, should also leave the theater feeling satisfied.