Pub quiz stalwarts will be familiar with the perennial question of which is the only band to have had a number one hit in every decade since the 1960s (answers on a postcard). Zombie film stalwarts are unlikely to need much prodding to point to George A. Romero as having (almost, if you skip the ‘90s) achieved a similar feat. Opinions on whether he has achieved a hit with the fifth entry into his rightly historic Dead series vary from review to review. Whilst the mainstream press is generally enthusiastic, genre commentators are divided and have, rarely for Romero, often been the source of vocal criticism.
To sum it up, Diary of the Dead is an interesting film with some excellent bits, but is ultimately flawed. Freed from the shackles of the studio machine that discernibly limited his directorial freedom in Land of the Dead, Romero takes us back to the origins of his zombie holocaust in Diary. Jumping around in time somewhat, the meltdown is moved from the 1960s to contemporary America, and is centred on a group of student filmmakers caught up in the mounting chaos.
That might sound a bit Blair Witch Project, but it’s used as an effective plot vehicle (in the first half of the film at least) as it allows Romero to narrate the stories of several disparate groups of survivors as his motley crew attempt to travel to safety. There is a real richness in these bit characters, especially Samuel, the deaf Amish superman. I also think it’s a nice development of the set-up in Night of the Living Dead. There, Romero effectively replicated a cross-section of society within the pressure cooker of the besieged farmhouse. In the intensity of that atmosphere, he toyed out the complexities of the human psyche (and all of its attendant unpleasantness) with a real panache. It’s a mark of his skill as a director that he is able to transfer a similar intensity of experience to what is, at heart, a relatively simple drive through bandit (rather, zombie) country. The same depressed frustration at seeing positions of safety surrendered because of the human proclivity to petty bickering is, alas and enjoyably, a common occurrence in Diary.
It’s also great to see Romero really go to town on the cadavers that have been so instrumental to his success. Matt and I have said elsewhere that the zombies are always secondary players in the Dead series, and Romero himself is on record as saying that he had never intended to be the man who makes zombie films. Diary has some of the best set-piece scenes in the entire Dead series (keep a look out for the defibrillator, the acid and most especially, the clown). In a perverse way they demonstrate Romero’s genuine affection for his subject matter, which is a nice reward for their 40 year service in his cause. They’re also continuing evidence of his sprightly imagination, which bodes very well for future Romero-Grunwald output.
So why is opinion so divided? A beauty of the Dead series has always been the ambiguity and complexity of Romero’s message. As mentioned above, the zombies are only ever used to exaggerate his observations on contemporary society. In Diary, he forgoes some this ambiguity and fixes his colours to the mast in a contradictory, at times patronising and, ultimately, unsuccessful way.
The story is principally centred on Jason Creed, an obsessive filmmaker whose aim is to document every aspect of the growing crisis. It’s an interesting idea, and one that could have worked. In the first half of the film, there is a real sense that his motives are a pure and necessary counter-foil to the lies and distortions being perpetrated by the mainstream media’s coverage of the crisis. There’s a certain nobility of purpose in his actions, which helps to excuse the fact that he is an annoyingly unpleasant individual (indeed, the most annoying character in the history of the series).
In seeing events through his hand-held camera, and in referencing video-streaming and YouTube, Romero manages to successfully integrate contemporary social and technological developments into the story to the extent that they become a seamless thread of the plot and offer genuine comment on what makes society tick in 2008. Anyone who has suffered through Halloween: Resurrection will know that it is all too easy to clumsily and pointlessly graft the apparel of such technology onto a horror film, with disastrous results. By any measure, you have to applaud Romero, a man in his late 60s let’s not forget (sorry George).
The film decisively fails around the half-way point, when it becomes apparent that Creed’s growing narcissism is not going to be challenged by either his band of travellers or the crisis in general. At that point, his polemic against the twisted mainstream media and his quest to capture the unfolding events become confused, patronising and, worse, boring. His constant harping on about the need to ensure a record lives on is reminiscent of pot-smoking students who lounge around all day bemoaning the faults of society whilst doing nothing to address them. Fine when you’re in college perhaps, but not during the conquest of humanity by the returning undead.
Sometimes you feel as though you have missed something, as his companions, who at first vent their annoyance at his unwillingness to get involved with the business of survival, suddenly convert to his school of smugness. The fascinating topic of media manipulation built up in the first half of the film is drowned out by a feeling that at least society is pulling together and trying to do something to address the problem. There’s an interesting exchange between Professor Maxwell and Creed in the hospital, the gist of which is that in an extreme survival situation (difficult to think of a more severe on than this) it’s both understandable and desirable the media/government establishment tries to keep calm and carry on. It’s a shame this baton isn’t picked up and developed further, which results in Creed being free to brow-beat his companions and the audience into following his own flawed logic.
I understand that a sequel has already been cleared for development, and my hope is that Romero uses that film to repair the damage done in the second half of Diary. There are plenty of glimmers for hope. The supporting characters here are much more interesting than Creed, and in following their story Romero could return to the shifting perspectives of disparate bands that is one of the strengths of his output. There are some superb moments of black comedy and insider jokes, which, coupled with the generally positive character development and set-pieces mentioned above are further testament to Romero’s undiminished role as a director at the top of his game. What is beyond dispute is that he has such a great eye for zombie films that we should all be extremely grateful that he is still making them.