Diary of the Dead

[jetxl]

George Romero is filming a new zombie movie, Diary of the Dead, which is filmed from the first person perspective (like Cloverfield and a gazillion clones before that).

Anyway, for those creative minds with a camera, you can send in a short horror movie and it might apear on the DVD.

http://www.myspace.com/diaryofthedead
And apparently he's 39...

[Nikolas]

And apparently he's 39...

In that case I'm not even born yet...

Am I the only one who feel this being a rather... fake attempt to publishity? (yes, tpyo intentional in both cases...)

Then again, why refuse a DVD entry in a film by Romero?... Dunno...

I think I'm too much of a sceptic... Allow me to withdraw and come back later... 

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I'm not interested in this 'film' for a few reasons:

1.  Land of the Dead was a horrible concession for Romero (a/b-list actors, intelligent zombies?).  Diary is supposed to be something of a continuation on the bad concepts introduced in Land.

2.  It's a deliberate attempt to copy what made Blair Witch a surprise hit (I didn't like Blair Witch but let's face facts, they made a good deal of money off the stunt) while missing all the points that made Blair Witch a hit (the fact that it was advertised as a real documentary gone wrong, poor camera work and tons of amateur actors, no special effects to speak of).

3.  It feels like Romero has gotten so desperate to make a movie that he's willing to compromise everything to get it made.


So yeah, read detailed cast/synopsis info and read interviews with Romero and I am happily avoiding this thing.

[deadsuperhero]

Bah, Romero's become something of a hack.
I prefer Fido: A Boy and His Zombie. One of the best, most heartwarming zombie films ever conceived.

[Evil]

It looks alright, IMO. From what I've seen it looks a bit too sappy. "What are you doing?" "If this turns out to be a big thing, I want to record it." "I'll never let go, Jack."

It's all boring crap mixed in with the good stuff. I loved the remake of Dawn of the Dead. But again, it was too love-story. Everyone is too ignorant about the zombies. "What is that thing" "People are coming back to life and we don't know why!" They're Zombies you fucks. Why don't they ever call them what they are within the first, I dunno, minute of the event. Someone is dead and they come back to live. Zombie. Shoot it in the head and run for cover. 28 Weeks Later had a great mix of everything. It was well done and I felt there was just the right amount of everything.

But, I do have respect for Romero, so I can only hope for the best. Anything will be better than Land of the Dead. That movie made zombie flicks look like a kids show. The Wiggles featuring their friends the Undead.

[Stupot]

I'm going to take a less cynical view and give Romero the benefit of the doubt.
Yes Land of the Dead was a bit mainstream and there were no real 'characters' in the literal sense.  They were just bland faces on the screen...  However, I still value the film as an important part of my collection and a welcome addition to Romero's catalogue.

I didn't have a problem with the zombies having evolved... I mean lets face it the Zombies of yesteryear are a bit boring, easy to kill, easy to outrun and not really very scary anymore.

As well as this,  with films such as 28 Days Later, where the victims of the virus are essentially zombies who can run fast (although the film's makers would tell you they are NOT zombies), there is a productive reason for having faster more intelligent monsters who are a bit fiercer.  This was also echoed in Zach Snyder's remake of 'Dawn of the Dead' (which I thought was a great film even if it did suffer from the same lack of characterisation). It makes more dramatic viewing.

You could argue that Night, Dawn and Day were dramatic films, and they were at times, but they were also extremely cheesy.  One could even call them B-movies and one wouldn't be too far off.  An attempt was made with 'Land', to cut out the cheese and make a genuinely jumpy film.  Unfortunately it fell into the category of 'teen horror flick' and it suffered from a different kind of cheese, but at least it showed that Romero had been thinking about the evolution of the series and of the zombies themselves.

If George A. Romero is guilty of one thing it is a spot of Band-wagon jumping.  He knows what's popular and he knows what sells.  If he wants to try his hand at some Blair-witch/Cloverfield style hand-held action then I'm willing to see how he pulls it off.  I think he's got as much right to try it as J J Abrahms has.  Snyder used it at the end of 'Dawn' when the survivors found that video camera on the boat and you saw them get attacked as the credits rolled.  That was one of the best directed sequences in the film and if Romero wants to use the method in one of his own films then I wish him the best of luck.

I for one will be looking forward to Diary of the Dead.

As for the topic 
I might just have a bash at making my own video... to have something on a Romero DVD is something I would have come in my pants about in my early teens when me and my mates used to make our own special effects with ketchup and roadkill.

[LimpingFish]

Hasn't been a good zombie movie in years. I'm not a fan of Land of the Dead, nor the Dawn remake. And we'll just ignore Resident Evil, et al, for a number of reasons.

I could be harsh and say that there hasn't been a good movie since Day of the Dead. I could be even harsher, and say that there hasn't been a really good zombie movie since the original Dawn.

The italian cycle, 1979-1985, produced a few decent movies; or movies with some decent ideas anyway. But nothing earth-shattering.

American movies seemed to play it for laughs, for the most part.

People, be it directors or writers, seem intent on either diluting the concept, or shoe-horning their own artist/political/religious agenda into it.

Romero has said each of his zombie movies is a different political/social satire. Land is by far the weakest, and most obvious.

Romero's non-zombie films, from the mid/late eighties onwards, haven't been any great shakes either.

EDIT: Oh, shit. Now they're remaking The Crazies >_<

[Sneaker]

The trailer looks great, I love zombies. As long as Romero don't follow the trend of fast zombies, I'm happy and really looking forward to it. I love the poster by the way:

[radiowaves]

Wait, so there is hope for the first person zombie perspective? That is actually cool, you could see the part of ripping out guts better

[deadsuperhero]

If you want to see something really novel, I'd highly recommend renting the movie Fido: A Boy and His Zombie, by Lionsgate Films. It's got some great actors, and is not only funny, but just outright brilliant.
It has a cast including Billy Conolly, Carrie-Anne Moss, Dylan Baker, K'Sun Ray, Henry Czerny, and Tim Blake Nelson.
The premise is that instead of World War II happening, the Zombie Wars happened instead. After the government finds a solution to "domesticate" these zombies, towns start being reinforced with huge iron fences. Radiation is the cause of zombification in this one, meaning anyone who dies becomes a zombie, but bites don't infect you. It takes place in the 1950's with an alternative to conspiracies (who turned who into a zombie?), the Red Scare (Old people could die at any minute, and are therefore treacherous!) , McCarthyism (We think we know you're the one responsible.), the Federal Prison System (just throw people over the fence)
If you took My Dog Skip, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, and The Sandlot, put them together, and made one film that actually turned out to be amazing, this would be it.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Alliance - right on with Fido!  That was a surprisingly excellent film.

I didn't have a problem with the zombies having evolved... I mean lets face it the Zombies of yesteryear are a bit boring, easy to kill, easy to outrun and not really very scary anymore.

I do for at least one important reason.  Romero's made it clear many times over that the zombies in his film are decaying at a normal rate (in fact, he cited this as a reason why Savini's Slash character looked bloated and messed up in the movie and why so many other 'characters' would not cameo).  Basically, the zombies are actually dying off due to decay, so none of them can really exist long enough to evolve, or there would have certainly been intelligent ones in Day (aside from the trained zombie Bub).  For another, it introduces a pointless subplot that we as viewers of zombie carnage don't really need.  Sympathetic zombies?  Is that really something we want?  He wasn't really trying to make us feel sympathy for Bub (hell, he was still eating guts) but wanted us to understand his motivations for killing Rhodes, whereas it was like he was trying to force us to suddenly care about this black zombie guy protecting his zombie people, which I refuse to do.  Outside of comedies, zombies are ideal as thoughtless, vicious killing machines.

[jetxl]

I think the zombie evolving thing is ment as the place of zombie monsters in today's film.
In the old days, a woman fainted when she saw the monster, like Stoker's Dracula (or hugo house of horrors 2 (crap game)). That made perfect sence to the audience. In the 70's, women run away histerical. And today we expect the women to go toe to toe with the monsters.
Old skool zombie are just not scaring them as they use to, but the fast boys do.

I would like to plug a comic book now.
The Walking Dead, which is like the romero zombie film style but more and there for better.
Thank you.

[Evil]

I wrote an article for a school newspaper (that was rejected) about how nuclear war now is less of an issue then bio-terrorism and how it's possible and more likely that terrorists would release a mass zombie pandemic than give us smallpox or something.

In reality, if it was possible to turn a human into a zombie (dead back to life to kill people) they would be fast and mobile, just like the zombies from the remake of Dawn of the Dead or 28 Whatevers Later. There would be a loss of sensory of fatigue and they could run faster longer.

Sure they could be less intelligent and moan and move in heards and whatnot, but they would move just as fast as we would. Prog is right about the decaying thing, but most of the zombies in movies are infected from a bite, which would hardly "decay" your body any. Maybe you'd lose mass amounts of blood and lose dexterity and some mobility, but a simple hand bite would turn you into an olympic runner, but with a taste for brains.

[Sneaker]

But a fast zombie doesn't make sense. A zombie is a living dead. When you die, Rigor mortis sets in and there limbs and muscles become stiff, making it hard for them to move fast. That is the reason why the "old" zombies walk slowly. And that's how it should be. Exception of course are the "zombie-like" humans in 28 Days Later. They are not dead yet, but only infected with a virus. So not zombies, but scary as hell.

[Stupot]

But a fast zombie doesn't make sense. A zombie is a living dead. When you die, Rigor mortis sets in and there limbs and muscles become stiff, making it hard for them to move fast. That is the reason why the "old" zombies walk slowly. And that's how it should be. Exception of course are the "zombie-like" humans in 28 Days Later. They are not dead yet, but only infected with a virus. So not zombies, but scary as hell.

When people 'die' they don't move at all.  Zombies are already breaking that rule, so why not break it further.
Today's general audiences want fast-paced high-octane explode-'em-ups.  I must admit, I think reverting back to the old slower zombies would give Romero a chance to make a character-based, artistic, film for appreciators of subtlety, but he's probably more interested in reaching the popular masses and to do that he has speed everything up, make everything bigger and spend more money on it... and use a shaky camera.

I don't blame him, and unless he reeeeally cocks up, I'll always be a fan.

[Sneaker]

I agree with you on the audience wanting fast paced action, but I don't like it. Zombies have to be slow. According to the trailer of Diary of the Dead, the zombies are slow (but I'm still in doubt because of the zombie in the hospital). Well, let's just hope that it will be good.

[Evil]

Well, my argument was that in order for a human to die and come back to life, would be for a virus to take control of the brain and start the body back up again and bring itself back to life. The heart would have to start again to pump blood the the limbs so they could move and the lungs would have to provide blood, and the body would be taking in blood and guts as a food providing the body with some nutrients. All of this activity would reactivate the body and slow the deterioration and decay.

Depending on how you claim a zombie virus would work will change how they move. Some claim it takes over the brain and just controls the body. If that's the case, without blood pumping to the muscles, you could move hardly at all before your body completely stopped.

Realistically, how a zombie virus could actually bring someone dead back to life, would require brain function, which would require oxygen, which would require blood flow, etc.

[LGM]

The closest to real that this scenario could ever become would be like 28 Days Later. A virus that infects our minds and makes us go crazy. You never die and come back to life, you just start eating people.

This, in decades time, could be quite possible. However, someone designing a virus with those distinct effects and having it released into the wild is a highly improbable... But I believe it could be possible at some point in time.

[Ghost]

When we take "zombie" in the original meaning of the word, we have not a dead corpse eating brains, we have a human made subservient to a "master" by a ritual that is tightly connected to voodoo. So an athlete, when turned into a zombie AND when ordered to do so, could actually cover quite a lot of ground.

Sorry. Been reading the 'wiki again.

The movie's looking okay. I'm not too much of a zombie fan in any case, I prefer my horror movie monsters having eight legs, but well, I think I'd rather watch Diary than Cloverfield.

[Paper Carnival]

I can't wait until they finally make a movie version of Three Happy Zombies