Film: Diary Of The Dead

On paper the idea is sound. Take the raw and real feel of films such as Blair Witch or Cloverfield, but use zombies as the bad guys instead. As far as I know it's not been done before and so should have been a no brainer in pulling off.

Except that Romero didn't think that was enough. Instead, he develops the idea further, making the actual filming (by film students of all people) the point of the movie and not just the style. The difference is pretty huge as our attention is constantly brought back to the fact that there's someone actually stupid enough to be filming while being attacked by the undead.

On the one hand this gets boring - you never quite become as engrossed as you do during the other examples of this type of film and the fact that the end product has been edited and given a voice-over and soundtrack made me think that they just shouldn't have bothered with the whole home video scenario. On the other you can't help but join in and yell at the guy to put his camera down (something you realise that you don't actually want to happen unless you're into early credits).

Gimmicks aside we are left with something half decent. The acting is shoddy and anything but convincing, and but there are some scary and funny bits in true Romero fashion. Otherwise I can't say that the punt actually paid off - I would have much preferred just another bog standard zombie movie myself.