George Romero, master of zombie flicks like DAWN OF THE DEAD and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is back with a ‘fresh’ look at the zombie genre.  DIARY OF THE DEAD – the film is so called because just like the recent CLOVERFIELD, DIARY traces the news of what really happens as seen on a video taped by the film’s characters.  But fortunately and unlike CLOVERFIELD and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, Romero’s film is coherent, intelligent but mostly less jittery and thus not give the audience a headache.

The premise is simple enough.  A group of young film students (played credibly by mostly young unknowns) record events while running into a zombie attack.  A British professor from Portsmouth with a knack for the bow and arrow hangs around offering wise but comic sayings.  They figure that the footage will tell the real story – not what the media wants the public to think.  They encounter different group of survivors as they drive an old Winnebago on a journey back to their homes but survive by instinct and thinking.  The film also plays like a zombie road movie.

The film contains the (cameo) voices of Brit Simon Pegg, Wes Craven and Stephen King no less as newscasters.

Romero proves here that he is still ahead of the game.  DIARY OF THE DEAD is as playful, entertaining and pays tribute to Romero’s old films.  In a final shot, he shows two misfits killing zombies for the hell of it asking a pertinent question if the human race is really worth saving.  Of course he could have showed some do-gooders with the opposite argument.  Is the film industry not worth saving if all movies were zombie flicks?