Movie Review: Diary of the Dead

Veteran horror filmmaker George A. Romero may not have invented zombies, but he pretty much invented the zombie movie as we know it back in 1966, with his undead classic Night of the Dead. Since then he's delivered genre classics Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, plus 2005's underrated Land of the Dead.

George's now back with Diary of the Dead. Luckily this isn't the tale of a lovesick, 30-something PR zombie keeping track of how many brains she's eaten in her secret diary. It's a low-budget, handheld account of the outbreak of the zombie plague from the point of view of a bunch of irritating students.

Although Romero's career away from zombies has been patchy, you could always rely on the director to deliver the gory, satirical goods with his Dead movies. And while Diary of the Dead contains both gore and satire, it breaks from the template in several ways.

It's not actually connected to the previous movies in any way, instead focusing on the start of another zombie plague in 2007. It's also not very good. Romero follows in the footsteps of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield by having the movie filmed by the characters themselves, and throws in a load of other multimedia formats – MySpace, blogs, CCTV and so on – to make the film seem all hip and trendy.

Aside from thinking of inventive ways for zombies to kill people, Romero's greatest strength as a filmmaker has always been his writing skills. Unfortunately, the decision to make the film seem 'real' means that the dialogue is often very awkward and stilted, and the characters themselves are a bunch of interchangeable, whiny teenagers that are just looking to get their faces munched.

The film quickly becomes repetitive as our bus-load of heroes move from one place to another, while Romero's traditional attempt to incorporate a topical political message seems unusually heavy-handed. The film has its moments, and Romero deserves credit for trying to get back to his independent roots, but for fans of the director, Diary of the Dead is all a bit lifeless.

And if a zombie-infested apocalypse isn't your idea of a fun night out then you should check out our other featured review of the week – ensemble assassination thriller Vantage Point. Click on the links to the right of the page.