The October Zombie-Thon 2009 - Day 1: The Zombie Diaries

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.01.2009

Does this British film manage to out-Romero Romero?

THE ZOMBIE DIARIES (2006)




Written & Directed by: Michael Bartlett & Kevin Gates
Country: UK


One suspects that when filmmakers Michael Bartlett and Kevin Gates first thought up the idea for The Zombie Diaries - a living dead film that plays out entirely through the home-video footage of its characters – it probably seemed pretty original. Sure, the concept had already been used in other famous horror films, like Cannibal Holocaust or The Blair Witch Project. But the idea hadn't really crossed over into the zombie genre yet.

By the time Bartlett and Gates' film was realized, however, it was forced to share the spotlight with a similar film from none other than the king of zombies himself, George A. Romero (not to mention the Spanish film [REC], another high-profile movie with the same gimmick). It's debatable whether the similarities to Romero's Diary of the Dead ultimately helped or hindered The Zombie Diaries (after all, a number of reviewers couldn't wait to compare the two, thus giving Diaries a little more attention than it might have otherwise enjoyed). But it's tough to argue that the film feels a little less special than it might have otherwise.

But, oh well, no use dwelling on that now. Like other reviewers, I'm not completely above comparing the two films (and will do a little bit of that in a moment), but for now let's just concentrate on Diaries and whether it is effective as a horror film on its own merits. The answer = ehhh, kind of.

The Zombie Diaries is actually split into three different stories, each one concerning a different group of characters. The first concerns a London news-crew working on the story of a strange new strain of bird-flu that has begun sweeping the globe. When the first reports of a possible London outbreak come in, the intrepid reporters head to the small rural town in question, only to find both the town and the farm where they are supposed to be meeting an interview source seemingly deserted.

The second story jumps ahead a bit, after the zombie mayhem is in full swing, and introduces us to group of roving survivors that has taken to looting abandoned stores for supplies. Of course, a simple raid without any complications wouldn't be very entertaining, so not surprisingly one of their looting attempts is met with serious complications once the undead show up.

The final story involves another group of survivors, although this group has passed on the whole wandering thing and has instead set-up camp in an apparently well-fortified farmhouse. Although they don't all get along, this group has set up a system for dealing with their situation that seems to be working out pretty well for them, including their own supply raids and no-nonsense rules about avoiding infection. They seem to have the whole zombie thing so under control, in fact, that it seems like the only thing that could really screw them up would be each other. Hmmmm…

If you've watched enough movies in your life, you've probably already figured out that these three stories will merge at some point. Indeed, that's not the only predictable thing about this movie. At times I wondered if the filmmakers employed the documentary-style gimmick in order to distract the viewers from noticing that there are a lot of clichés at play here. The car that won't start! The phones that don't work! The power outages at the worst possible moment! All of these goodies are present, but I guess we're not supposed to be that bothered by it because the verite nature of the film presents them in a more serious fashion than usual.

I can accept that, I suppose. But it's not just the occasional cliché that the film's style seems to be masking – there's also the rather dull, unoriginal plot. Don't get me wrong – there are some very effective moments in each of the three stories. For instance, the sequence in the first story where the news-team enters an apparently empty farmhouse and explores the rooms with only the light from their camera to guide them is quite full of tension. And a scene in the third tale in which the survivors fill a field with burning bodies of zombies they have destroyed is a striking piece of visual imagery.

But all of these decent moments are somewhat overshadowed by way too much time spent watching characters just kind of wander around aimlessly. The whole thing has a feeling of roughly edited footage, which is a nice touch…but it leaves in too much filler – scenes where nothing is really happening to drive the plot along. One could argue that this gives the film an even more "realistic" feeling, as it's probably true that not every moment of these character's lives would be full of excitement. But that doesn't make it any more exciting to watch, and for a film that's not very long (about an hour and twenty minutes), there are simply too many long stretches where you can't wait for something (anything!) to finally happen.

Things do finally start to pick up in the film's final act, when a late twist regarding one of the characters not only helps the bridge the three stories together, but also considerably amps up the film's "twisted" factor. And here's where I guess we can get to those Diary of the Dead comparisons, because like that film (like all of Romero's zombie films, in fact), The Zombie Diaries seems to be making a final point that even in a nightmare world of the undead like this, it's our fellow humans we still have to look out for most of all. Zombies might be scary, but good old human nature can be flat-out terrifying. And unlike Diary, this movie actually gets the idea across in a clever way that takes the story in a neat, unexpected direction, rather than just beating you over the head with it like Romero did.

Unfortunately, though, that's about the only area where I can say this film improves on Romero's film. I suppose there will be those who prefer this film's ultra-realistic tone and more steadfast adherence to the rules and logic of hand-held documentary footage – there are no multi-angle cheats or cheesy overlaid music like there was in Diary. But what Romero's movie had that this one didn't is a sense of fun. Now, I understand that's not exactly what this movie was going for, and it's not really fair to criticize a movie for what it isn't. But still, while Romero's film was admittedly something of a mess, at least it had a number of moments that stuck with you after seeing it, like the cool visual of zombies walking around the bottom of a pool, or the ridiculous but undeniably awesome sequence involving the dynamite-tossing mute Amish farmer. The Zombie Diaries, on the other hand, is more concerned with presenting a morosely realistic take on the concept; it never allows itself to cut loose and indulge in any sort of similar nonsense. That wouldn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, normally (after all, I'm certainly not opposed to depressing zombie movies). But because this movie is so slow-moving for such long periods, you can't help but wish there were some more moments of excitement mixed throughout to keep you interested. Yeah, the whole thing ends strong…but getting to that point without checking out from boredom can be quite the slog.

I can't write this off completely – it's clearly the product of talented filmmakers, and when it works, it really works. The performances are good across the board, the film's obvious low-budget doesn't hinder some fairly impressive make-up work (some of the zombies are quite creepy), and I enjoyed the genuinely eerie sound design employed in between the stories. And yes, the realistic vibe created by the "hand-held video footage" gimmick, while not as unique as they probably intended, does still have its merit – I might not think it's as entertaining as [REC] or Diary of the Dead, but I'll grant that it's the one that feels most plausible (as plausible as these movies can be, anyway). So, sure, zombie fans should check it out once for its few decent moments. It's just too bad there's not much that will bring them back for additional viewings.


FINAL SCORE: 2 out of 4 Bubs (Average)