Diary of the Dead
Living Dead Series, Romero 2007, Diary of the Dead
Romero’s fifth film in the Dead Series, Diary of the Dead was created in 2007 and boy has his zombie movies come a long way! It is not an exact sequel to its predecessors but rather a story about the myth of the story.
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Diary of the Dead basically follows a group of people who are making a horror film about the first outbreak but end up getting chased by zombies themselves. This is actually a pretty brilliant concept that Romero decided on rather than trying to pick up where the others left off.
Diary of the Dead begins with a scene where film students who attend the University of Pittsburgh are making a horror film with Andrew Maxwell, their faculty adviser. News comes over the radio about mass murders, rioting and cannibalism.
Yes, the deceased are walking again! Ridley and Francine choose to leave the group but Jason, the project director heads to get his girlfriend Debra with full intentions of filming the story as a documentary. Debra can’t get a hold of her family so they head to Scranton, Pennsylvania in an RV to find them.
Diary off the Dead starts out gory and certainly holds its theme throughout. On the way, their friend Mary runs over a
state trooper, shoots herself, end up in the hospital and of course, comes back to life to attack the others. Herself as well as a few others in the group who have been bitten and need to be killed for protection.
Shortly after, they are stopped by a gang of armed civilians. The leader is from the National Guard but has no faith that the military will be of any help in this crisis. They edit a bit of their documentary and Debra finds out her family is alive and on their way home from a camping trip. The group receives a video stream out of Tokyo so they know that there are survivors elsewhere in the world but then they lose signal.
The internet is now the only source of contact with the outside world in Diary of the Dead which is pretty interesting considering this was unheard of in Romero’s first films.
When they finally get to Debra’s house, they have to fight off her undead mother and brother so they travel to Ridley’s mansion that is nearby only to find it completely abandoned. Once inside the home, they discover a panic room with Ridley inside talking about how everyone is dead. He takes Tony and Debra to show them where they are buried but it’s a trick. The body’s are in the pool and he locks the two of them in the poolroom and begins to hunt the others.
The survivors manage to hide for a bit in the panic room but they are all getting infected and killing each other. Debra finds the video camera and decides she must continue with the documentary. Diary of the Dead ends with Debra watching the video and deciding if the human population is even worth saving.
To recap what happened in the fourth Living Dead Film Visit Land of the Dead!