GEORGE A. ROMERO'S DIARY OF THE DEAD

US, 2007, 95 minutes, Colour.
Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Shawn Roberts, Amy Ciupak Lalonde, Joe Dinicol, Scott Wentworth, Philip Riccio, Chris Violette, Tasciana Maslany.
Directed by George A. Romero.

In 1968, George A. Romero made a small-budget, black and white film about contemporary zombies in US cities, The Night of the Living Dead, which is now considered one of the principal horror films of the 20th century and a huge influence on film-making. Romero continued his fascination with horror, particularly the living dead, in the 1970s with Dawn of the Dead, the 1980s with Day of the Dead, a remake by Tom Savini in 1990. While there was a living dead lull in the 1990s, this present decade has seen something of an industry! Romero himself has made Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead (with a sequel for 2009 announced) and there have been some remakes as well as experimental and 3D tinkering with Romero’s original. It is as if Romero’s dead films keep coming back to life.

Where this one is different is that it shows the influence of The Blair Witch Project style of film-making, handheld cameras, the audience being taken into the film-makers’ confidence that they are seeing footage of real events which have been edited into a feature film. Hence the title’s use of ‘Diary’. (This method was recently used to substantial effect with the rampaging monster in New York film, Cloverfield.)

This time there are very few living dead crowd scenes as in the city streets and malls of the previous films. There are a few, but the action is confined to a small group of college film-makers who are trying to make a Mummy horror film as an assignment, ridiculing the conventions of the genre (which, of course, are repeated later in the film ‘for real’). When their dormitory has been abandoned, they drive with their professor to reach the family of the main character whose voiceover tells us that she has edited the material shot by her boyfriend as a record of what happened.

There are, of course, some gory and gruesome moments but fewer than in some of the previous films. This one relies on our sharing the experiences, fears and threats with the group who are a bit more individual and distinctive than might have been expected: on the road, an eerily empty hospital, an Amish community and barn, a warehouse with survivors, a group of national guard and the final visits to the homes.

By using this kind of immediate film within a film genre and its techniques, Romero has been able to give new life to his 40 year long fascination with the living dead.

1.George A. Romero and his influence on horror films? Film-making? Small budget? Independent? The Night of the Living Dead in the 1960s? Other zombie movies in the 80s, in 2005? Forty years later with this film?

2.Audience response to the living dead: the horror genre, zombies and their behaviour, appearance, life but no soul, terrorising communities, cannibalising? The visuals, the shock horror effects?

3.The living dead as a metaphor: the end of the world, universal infection, viruses, mysterious attack on the humans, panic, authorities, the media response, cover-ups, fear, destruction of society, dead in life? The comment about satiric comments through these horror films?

4.The survivors, fighting for life, fear, violence, pain, the grief? Yet looting and power struggles?

5.The style of the film? The hand-held camera, The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield? Camerawork, immediacy, polished style, amateur style, the effect of the combination, showing the cameraman at work? The audience responding as conscious of the documentary style, realism, yet a fiction narrative?

6.The prologue, the bodies, the media, discovering the dead were alive, the dead attacking? Death and turning people into zombies? Spreading throughout the communities, the Tokyo television visuals, the empty hospitals, the horror, the warning to shoot the living dead through the head?

7.Jason, as a character, the explanation by Debbie about the film, her editing, her voice-over? Death of Death? The takes, the recording, Jason's motivation, history? Style, the cameras, the batteries going down? Being there? The editing, on the laptop, incorporating footage, the surveillance footage?

8.Making the film, the mummy, the mocking of the horror genre, the group out in the woods, the heroine and her fleeing, falling, her comments - and the later repetition with Tracy's own experience with Ridley? Hearing the news, their reaction, Ridley going home, the others going back to the college? The empty college, the looter? In the van, the various members of the group, the professor? The professor's role as guiding them, for the film-making? Driving, Mary as the driver, the confrontation with the living dead, running over the bodies, her fears, stopping, running out, shooting herself, the group taking her to the hospital, the hospital empty, the infected nurse and doctors?

9.Jason and his getting the group to tell their names, their reactions, for the record? Not seeing him? Debbie and her relationship with him? Her wanting to go home, phone call and texting to the family? Her strength? Mary as the driver, Tracy and Gordo as a couple, Tracy from Texas? Elliott as young? Tony and the chip on his shoulder? The professor and his life, in England, his background?

10.The travel, meeting the Amish man, Samuel and his being deaf, the barn, his helping, infected and killing himself with the axe?

11.The National Guard, in the warehouse, their being abducted, their fears, Debbie and her strong confrontation? Jason and Tony wandering through the warehouses? The infected members? Their being allowed to go?

12.Meeting the actual National Guard, and their robbing the supplies?

13.Getting home, empty, the brother rushing out, the dead mother, Debbie and her sadness?

14.Ridley's mansion, meeting him, the set-up of the panic room, the luxury of the house, the professor with the books, his alcoholism and drinking, the luxury, Elliott going for the bath?

15.Ridley and the dead, in the pool, resurrecting, killing Elliott in the bath? Tracy and her driving away? Jason's death? The others surviving?

16.Debbie, her final comments, the film for posterity?

17.The effect of watching this kind of horror film? In itself? For shocks and laughs? Or for the metaphorical meanings of the images?