Has anyone else seen this? I "rented" it last night on Video On Demand thru AT&T's U-Verse.

What I'm On About: The Zombie Diaries (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0876294/). The gist of it is that it's a British Film released in 2006. It covers a few isolated events directly related to one another over the course of a month. It starts out with a television news crew interviewing people about their thoughts on a worldwide pandemic that, initially, nobody seems to know much about.

I really liked it, as I felt it's one of the better Zombie flicks out there that doesn't appear to have not been backed by a major motion picture company. It seems to take all of the Romero Zombie stuff in to account, as well. Lots of tense action and done somewhat in the same vein as The Blair Witch Project as far as shooting used for the suspense and tension thing, goes. It also has an interesting social message attached to it. ;)

Haven't seen it yet, but I can explain a bit about it not getting wide release.

About the same time that this movie was being released, George Romero was making a similarly titled film called Diary of the Dead. Which was done along the same vein as Zombie Diaries (handheld cameras, first person perspective, and so on). Romero had the clout to get his film relelased bigger than the british film. (Although the Romero film relied on financial backers from outside the normal channels to keep his vision intact).

The main difference is the gore factor. TZD doesn't have as much of it as DOTD does.

I remember this same thing happening back in the early 90's when Kevin Costners' "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves" came out. There had been a british produced "Robin Hood", starring Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman that was seen here in the states on Fox Television about a month prior to Costners' film being released. I had always thought the Bergin version being better as far as acting and such. It just didn't have bankable stars for theatrical distirbution in the US. You can still find it on DVD all over the place.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102797/

They're both ok. ZD at least portrays live people as having a bit of common sense, tho throwing in the sadists was a poor choice. I guess they were commentary on who the real monsters are if I'm not reading too much into it. Seems to me if there were zombies about, the more live people around to help with defense the better. DOTD did a better job sticking with the overall story. I read where Romero couldn't/didn't want to go after money, so he has a series of low budget zombie films planned.
If you were in danger of being eaten alive, would you tie yourself down to the limited field of view of a video camera? Both films suffer from that implausibility. Should have had a scene of Gilligan riding a bamboo unicycle to charge the batteries. . .

However, both are Academy Award material next to last year's The Happening . . . :freak:

If you were in danger of being eaten alive, would you tie yourself down to the limited field of view of a video camera? Both films suffer from that implausibility. Should have had a scene of Gilligan riding a bamboo unicycle to charge the batteries. . .

However, both are Academy Award material next to last year's The Happening . . . :freak:

Yeah, that was my problem with Diary of the Dead as well. If the dead start walking the Earth and eating people, the last thing I'm going to be worried about is keeping everything in frame as I document it. Not to mention posting it on youtube.

Just watched The Happening on blu-ray this weekend, and I agree completely. I didn't think any of last year's movies could possibly be worse than Vantage Point or Wanted, but I was seriously wrong. What a pointless and stupid movie!

I still think Romero's original Dawn of the Dead is king of the zombie movies, nobody else has come close since, not even Romero. Shaun of the Dead does deserve honorable mention though!

MartinHatfield - Oh, yes. I'm well aware of Romero's "Dead" movies as I own everything he's put out, as well as the remake of "Night" that Tom Savini did, the "Dawn" remake of 2004 - not at all a bad movie, but not in the same 'verse - , the very poor "remake" of "Day" (also w/Ving Rhames), the Argento movies, the excellently funny "Shaun" and even a variety of mid-to-late 70's and 80's flicks. I also own several of the independent Zombie flicks. Most of the non-Romero flicks are just attempts to cash in on the Genre. Some, like "Shaun" are both a bit of parody and homage at the same time.

Scott/Philip Marlowe - I have no problems w/someone being caught up in what's happening and wanting to record it for whatever reason. The way it was handled in Romero's "Diary" felt plausible, as it was explained, IMNSHO. Jason got so caught up in what he was doing w/the need to record what was happening that by the end of the movie what happened was pretty much inevitable. He had stepped so far out of the "real world" that he likely felt it would never happen to him.

TZD, on the other hand, had some moments that seemed a bit contrived with regards to how some of those people were handeling the situations. The original cameraman's actions mostly made sense to me, given what they were doing. Even the group of three w/the American as part of them wasn't too out of the normal for some of what was happening - up to the very end of that particular video camera.

And yes, the social commentary that TZD did there at the end was similar to what Romero has said in his movies - that we're really no better than the Zombies in a lot of ways, sticking to our incessant need to have "things", as well as how even in the worst of situations we'll still figure out a way to do bad things to others. The one character was the perfect example of that with regards to his seeming sociopathic tendencies. All he cared about was what he wanted and anything else be danged.

My personal favorite is also Romero's Dawn, tho I prefer the Extended Version over any of the others. If you don't already own it, you should pick up The Ultimate Edition Dawn of the Dead. It contains the aforementioned Extended Version. Great stuff.

RonH - Yes, that's one of the things I love about Romero's movies - they're generally some level of social commentary. Both TZD and Romero's "Diary" - as well as all other Romero flicks - make a point of showing just what monsters humanity can generate and how it tends to be even more horrific on some levels than the Zombies.

Romero has stated many times that he's not so much about the money as making a movie that the fans like. Obviously, he doesn't mind the money 'cause he's no fool. However, he's more inclined to make movies that The Fans will like than what HollyWeird wants to see made. That's one of the things I like about his movies, small budgets and all - they're more "real" than most anything else coming out the larger movie studios these days. Even the much more commercial "Land of the Dead" wasn't too bad, IMNSHO. I actually liked it and feel it fits in fairly well w/the rest of the "Dead" movies - especially it's commentary about how "having it all" is always at the expense of someone else, as well as how The Rich just can't help but be who they are.


Thinking back on it, I had heard of TZD back in the Fall, but don't recall ever hearing about it prior to that time. I liked it and plan to add it to my Amazon.com queue at some point as it's a Must Have for my Zombie collection.

They're coming to get you , Barbera !

Yeah, I saw that a couple weeks back. That's the sign from Austin, Texas, where someone broken in to the casing for the computer, then "hacked" the computer by setting it to the default password - which they obviously already knew - then set the sign to flash with those three, most brilliant words.

Unfortunately for whomever did that, the city officials don't seem to have much of a sense of humor. They're looking to prosecute whomever was trying to save the lives of their fellow Austonians with that warning about Zombies ahead. Yet another coverup by the gov't!



:p
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