Zombie Month: Diary of the Dead

Every fucking time, it happens. There's a character in a movie named Jason and he's either weird, psycho, a killer, or a giant douchebag. "George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead" is no exception. Here, a guy named Jason is a giant douche. I should start a cause or something.

So this movie apparently got a lot of notoriety for being bad. Like BAAAAAD! Like people got violently upset over this movie. Me being 1. A bad movie watcher 2. A zombie movie fan and 3. someone that likes to punish myself, I decided to check out how bad it is. And I just went and bought it. Cause, fuck it. I own "Battlefield Earth". Let's stink up my movie collection, I say!

The gimmick for this movie is the entire movie falls in the hand held "P.O.V" category as we're watching the events of a zombie outbreak unfold. We start off with a newsreporter getting eaten by the first zombies (I guess) and soon it spreads like wildfire.

We get a voiceover from a chick named Debra saying the following movie we're watching was made buy a guy named Jason and this movie is called "The Death of Death". Creative title, asshole.



We then go on set of some cheap student film monster movie about a mummy attacking, I dunno, a Medievel princess. The chick, Tracy, is from Texas so a Texan Medievel Princess. Nice movie, asshole.

Sorry. His name is Jason and he's a dick. Ugh.

Anyway. On set in the woods they hear the news about the zombie outbreak (I do wanna point out now that the "zed" word is never mentioned in the movie, much like any other Romero zombie movie. Before anyone asks.) and the dude playing the mummy Ridley takes a hot chick named Francine and says "DEUCE! I'm going to my mansion!" He invites people to come along but no one goes with. Party with a rich dude and a hot chick? FUCK YEAH! But no one goes for some reason so whatever.

At this point Jason decides to glue the camera to his fucking face and make this zombie outbreak documentary and he has everyone introduce themselves. We meet Mary, a quiet chick who's driving the giant RV, Gordo (Really? Gordo?) Tracy's boyfriend, Eliot, the nerdy guy who would probably be me in this situation, Tony some weird quiet guy who starts off as the asshole, and finally the Professor. The Professor is the type of Professor who's hardcord British, loves Chauncer, and nothing beats a good burbon in the morning.

It then goes into "The Road Adventures of College Students Through A Zombie Outbreak" as the RV travels to different points in Pennsylvania. First they're trying to get to Debra's parents house to check in on them. On the way, she and Jason fight cause all he wants to do with film stuff.

Now, I get what he's going for. If I had a camera, I'd be doing the same thing. At the same time, I know when to film stuff and when to put the camera down and help out when my friends are being attack by zombies.

First, Mary runs over some dead dudes but she feels guilty about this so she tries to kill herself. She failed so they take her to a hospital where some staffers try to attack them. Mary eventually dies and becomes a zombie so Gordo has to kill her. Gordo kinda gets into the killing (a bit too much actually) but the Professor calms him down and gives the gun to Tony. Yeah, he's more of a sane person.



Next their RV breaks down and they meet a nice Amish dude named Samuel. Tracy, cause she's from Texas, knows how to fix a gasline and does so. Zombies attack, gasline is fixed, Samuel is attacked but he does the coolest thing in the entire movie: he shoves a scythe through his own head until it goes through the zombie's head. It's fucking great!




Then they need gas so they stake out a gas station when some militant black dudes show up with rifles bigger than me. Everyone eventually cools down and we come to find out the black dudes are taking their land back. (Their words, not mine.) They stockpiled a bunch of shit, especially gas. The lead black dude agrees to give them gas and supplies.

After one of the black dude's guys becomes undead and they kill him with acid (another pretty cool scene), they leave for Debra's parents house. There, she finds her parents and little brother dead and undead. The Professor, armed with a bow and arrow kill the parents. Debra takes all this ok and they decide to head to Ridley's place, which he promised was a fortress.



They arrive at his mansion and find the door open and Ridley acting fucking weird. Elliot goes upstairs to take a shower and Tracy goes to change clothes (she spent this entire movie with a corset cause she was still a Texan medevil wench). Debra and Tony learn that Ridley's parents and the house staff became zombies and attacked Francine. Ridley did the only thing he could do: he put them in a swimming pool. I'm not even fucking kidding.



I...don't know why. Tony sees that Ridley was bitten and soon enough he turns into a zombie and attacks Elliot. Outside, Jason proves he's a ROYAL dick by not helping Tracy unload the RV but instead films her doing so. Why are you filming this? This is the stupidest thing in the world to put in your movie. Just put the damn camera down and help her unload.

Eventually, Ridley shambles into screen and starts chasing Tracy, which looks like the opening scene when we met these two. Tracy eventually kills Ridley and says "don't mess with Texas!" and steals the RV and leaves the movie. Um, ok then.

Inside Ridley's house is a panic room so everyone agrees to hide out in there until this blows over. Jason wants to film everyone but he's attacked by Ridley. I guess Tracy didn't kill him. So much for Texas. (No offense, Nick.)

They eventually kill Ridley and Debra kills Jason before he turns into a zombie. Soon, everyone hides out in the panic room. Debra is editing Jason's movie. And outside the panic room the zombies break in...

There's one last shot of rednecks hunting the zombies. There's a pretty cool scene where they tied one chick up on a tree by her hair, then shoot her so only the top of her head is left hanging there, still "alive". And that's it. I think this is social commentary but whatever.



Truthfully, and I'm gonna be burned on the stake for saying this, I didn't think this movie was THAT bad. It's not the best zombie movie. It's not the best Romero movie. But for what it is, it wasn't too bad. I didn't find it irritating like everybody else on the fucking planet found it. Granted, Jason got on my nerves so maybe that had something to do with it. I don't know. It's just kinda whatever to me.


-Jason