(Asylum/Madman)

Night of the Livejournal Dead

Since his ground-breaking and unforgettable Night Of The Living Dead back in 1968, George Romero’s zombie movies have unfortunately followed a downwards trajectory. Diary Of The Dead tries to reinvigorate the premise by having the entire story filmed by its characters, just like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield or a pile of other scary movies. The protagonists are student film-makers working on a horror movie of their own on the day the zombie apocalypse begins, so straight away they’re complaining about the genre’s clichés in an artificial way. Like too many post-Scream horror movies there’s a cloying degree of self-awareness. There are also frequent mentions of today’s tech and culture, but every time you hear about downloading, YouTube or bloggers it’s phrased clumsily. Romero wants to remind you how up-to-the-minute he is, but it sounds like your dad talking about the Internet and getting the details all wrong. It doesn’t help that digital video footage is often shown breaking up fuzzily as if it was analogue. There are some very inventive death scenes and a couple of memorable characters – although they have an annoying tendency to die soon after being introduced, leaving us stranded with the pouting protagonists – and an Amish farmer who is smarter and more competent than the tech-head kids is a great addition. However, it’s a shame to see Romero, once the innovator, blatantly cribbing from more recent movies and coming off second-best.

**½

JODY MACGREGOR

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