Diary of the Dead (R, 2008)

DIARY OF THE DEAD follows the same basic plot of George Romero's earlier "living dead" movies: The dead wake up as flesh-eating zombies, and -- while doctors and scientists scratch their heads and the media show and exacerbate panic -- people with guns take over. This time, the action centers on a group of film students from the University of Pittsburgh who are in the middle of shooting their own horror movie when they learn that the nation has been overrun by a plague of zombies. As the illness spreads exponentially, the students' cameras capture scene after scene of chaos, bloody mayhem, and their own violent resistance. Counseled by their drunken, wise, and very weary professor, the students debate their duties as journalists as they make their way toward home in a Winnebago, hoping against hope that their families haven't been infected. But each new location brings more tragedy and horror.

The fact that first instance of zombification -- which is broadcast on TV and then uploaded to the net so it becomes "viral" -- involves a Latino family suggests that Romero is making an allusion to current questions of immigration and legality. As the monsters are soon revealed to be the very families the students seek to rejoin, the issue of who's "them" and who's "us" becomes very complicated. Smartly, the students' first-person cameras only compound the problem; some feel obligated to disseminate all available information, including terrible, uncensored imagery that constitutes a kind of "truth." Upset when they learn that cable and local news and the government weren't showing everything, the twentysomethings are moved to show the world what's really happened.

Romero's decision to marry an old plot and a new time is a sharp one. Part of what happens -- as in 1968's Night of the Living Dead -- is division along visible difference. The zombies change into monstrous, scabby, bloody, and slow-walking creatures; but before then, they're like us, and so carry with them emblems of their lives: golf sweaters, curlers, sneakers. At one point, a powerful, gun-toting tough guy admires film student Debra (Michelle Morgan), noting their similar hardiness and determination. This brief bit of bonding and mutual admiration goes a long way in a film so suffused with brutality and betrayal.

Studio: Weinstein Co.
Director: George A. Romero
Cast: Josh Close, Michelle Morgan, Shawn Roberts
Genre: Horror
Run time: 95 minutes
Theatrical release: February 14, 2008
DVD release: May 20, 2008
MPAA Rating: R
MPAA explanation: strong horror violence and gore, and pervasive language.