[The Zombie Diaries]
Plot:In the early part of the 21st century, a virus called "The Omega Strand", an off-shoot of the avian flu began spreading amongst the populous and eventually wiped out entire cities forcing survivors to take refuge in high rise buildings and remote areas. Some of these survivors began documenting their experience via video, photos, and writings. This is their story.

Cast:Stovin Richards, Russell Jones, Jonnie Hurn, Anna Blades, James Fisher, Alison Mollon, Sophia Ellis, Kyle Sparks, Imogen Church, Victoria Nalder, Jonathan Ball, Will Tosh, Ralph Mondi, Hiram Bleetman, Juliet Forester, Leonard Fenton.

My Thoughts:Well...it started off good.

Review:"The Zombie Diaries", from director Kevin Gates, is a film which plays out in the vein of many other zombie movies where a plague of the undead has infected a particular area and a group of survivors are forced to band together in order to survive. But most notably, it plays out like a Romero film...the look and feel of the movie is similar to that of "Diary Of The Dead". No musical score, no fancy explosions, just zombies being filmed through the lense of a video camera and nothing but the surroundings and the characters for the viewer to focus on.

It plays on in docu-drama-styled fashion, but where it goes wrong is where "Diary Of The Dead" went right. While "Diary" had it's issues, it atleast had decent performances, and alot more zombie action. This film doesn't have the best performers, nor does it give the viewer enough zombie action to be proud of. It starts off pretty well, with soldiers entering an infected zone before the movie kicks over to a British film crew who are investigating the plague.

They end up getting stranded in their locale when the plague spreads and shuts down all transportation, and stranding them out in the rural farmland where for some reason, most zombie movies are set. They take refuge inside a farmhouse, but soon come to realize that there's an undead upstairs, and so they flee only to run into more undead. This forces thme to take refuge somewhere else, where they hole up for weeks and months, killing off the infected as they approach the house, and leaving their safehaven only to gather up supplies. The problem with this movie is it's been done before.

And the fact that the characters are a film crew doesn't help differentiate the film from any previous zombie movies. A group of people, fleeing a zombie plague, hole up inside a place. Which only lasts for so long because the zombies are eventually drawn to their safehaven. So they get some guns, and start shooting any new groups of zombies which come by, and they gather up supplies from time to time which eventually results in someone getting bitten and a "decision" having to be made. I think if you're gonna make a zombie movie.....you really need to do something that sets your film apart from other zombie movies that came before it.

Especially in this day and age of cinema verite. The director failed to do that with this film. While the quiet, creepy, eerie setting of the countryside works to create an effective setting for a horror film, you can only ride that for so long before you have to give the viewer some interesting characters, blood and gore, and an ever progressing story. We're given none of that here. Blood and guts are for the most part, kept on the disabled list in this movie, the characters are teenagers in adult bodies, constantly using profanity at each other, and the story just slows to a crawl once they enter the safehaven...and never really bothers to get going again.

The film has nothing to offer beyond the first 15 to 20 minutes, and even in the middle of the movie...where s turning point should occur, nothing happens. Instead...we're left to watch these people run around and make the one fatal mistake which will get them bitten, turned, and or killed. The one positive that can be gathered from "Zombie Diaries" however is the ending, which adds a surprising twist to the events taking place. And kind of has the underlying message of "man being more dangerous than any undead thing."

But that's about as clever or deep as this film gets, and you've gotta wonder with the way it concludes...where was all of this in the films middle or even late starting portions? "The Zombie Diaries" is a film that although very similar to previous zombie fare, squanders an opportunity to atleast be entertaining on some distant level.

Positives:Clever spin on the ending, and the opening 20 minutes are very strong.

Negatives:The films middle portion offers nothing of substance, the characters are weak, and the blood and gore are too nonexistent for a zombie film.

Overall:One and a half out of four stars.





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