It's the same old thing

I love the Ramones. No matter what happens, the Ramones will always be greater gods of my rock pantheon. The first four records are astounding, the next four solid and the follow on albums are, to be kind, so so. I feel the same way about the films of George Romero. His early works are excellent and worthy of horror film canonization.) His recent effort, the Diary of the Dead, is crap.

Diary of the Dead combines two moribund approaches to film making, zombie social commentary and Point of View film making. Zombie movies are mostly played at this point(although I hold out hopes that World War Z will be good,) but this movie is killed by the use of the point of view style.

The movie's characters are a group of film students making a horror movie in the PA forests when they hear about the zombie attacks. While they pack up the film crew RV and head to their families, one of them decides to film for posterity. There is some pushback from his friends, but they mostly go along with it. The device becomes more and more unbeliveable as the film continues. They film while people are being killed or while they are in huge peril. This is a comment on media, I know, but I doubt college kids would act the way they do in this movie.

I suppose everyday conversation can be as stilted and ridiculous as the dialogue in this movie, but I doubt it. The acting doesn't help. Most annoying of all is the film school teacher who takes breaks from his booze drinking only to deliver horrendously cheesy pronouncements of world weariness.

There is a sequel to this film being made now. If I hadn't seen this film and wanted to take a guess at its likely quality, I could take note that one of the characters is named "Nicotine" Crockett. I hope Don Johnson gets the role.