I think Diary of the Dead was better than Romero’s previous return to the shambling genre Land Of The Dead. There was a more natural tone and the drama focused around human relationships as in the original trilogy (Night Of The Living …, Dawn Of The … and Day Of The …) unfortunately those relationships were conducted pretty much exclusively between those scourges of the modern horror film, bland US college kids. The only interesting characters were a hammy alcoholic Brit thesp who hangs around on the sidelines proclaiming stuff, and a deaf and dumb Amish guy called Samuel who introduces himself and excuses himself from the action in two of the films most memorable moments. The political stuff which is par for the course with Romero’s zombie flicks isn’t left as subtext as in the brilliant Dawn… and underrated Day… but instead repeatedly hammered at the audience via an annoying narration, part of the films frankly unnecessary “it’s a documentary” framing device. 6/10 probably.
In other film news in spite of what some people think ‘No Country For Old Men’ isn’t the Coen brothers’ best film, it’s good but it’s no Millers Crossing, it’s not even Fargo. Having said that, the suspense is awesome and Bardem’s Oscar winning haircut is funny. The executive summary is 1. No free will and 2. Things ain’t what they used to be.
There Will Be Blood, is I think, as great as people say it is.
Also, we saw the trailer for a film called Doomsday in the cinema on Thursday. It was a bit confusing, a cheesy 28 Days later knockoff (i.e. crazy virus sweeps the UK) that midway through morphed into a kind of Escape From NY/ Mad Max 2 feast of leather costumes and chainsaws. Also it’s directed by the guy who did Dog Soldiers and The Descent, both of which I loved.
Yeah, I expect I’ll be going to see that.
