George A. Romero and his zombie movies have been haunting me since I first saw Dawn Of The Dead, as much for the post-apocalyptic themes as for the shambling cannibalistic undead. He basically invented the genre that has become one of the corner stones of modern horror cinema and with Diary Of The Dead, his fifth Dead film, he takes things back to basics.

Diary is the story of a group of students creating a cheesy horror film at the beginning of a massive zombie outbreak.  Already equipped with the knowledge gleaned from watching all of Romero's films as well as reading Max Brooks' truly excellent World War Z and it's predecessor, The Zombie Survival Guide, it was delicious torture watching these noobs make all of the classic mistakes. It doesn't matter if that dead guy is your dad or your boyfriend, just put a bullet (or an arrow or a large rock) through his brain ASAP or you could be next! All of the complications of being on the run in the increasingly zombie-plagued countryside are amplified in Diary Of The Dead by the fact that the director of the student film decides that it is his duty to document the end of the world as we know it, often at extreme risk to himself and his band of friends.

This glory-hungry would be documenter of the end winds up filming members of his posse being zombified rather than pressing pause on his camera long enough to save their lives. Romero is making another of his trademark societal comments here, this time with the spin-happy mainstream media squarely in his sights. You see, the TV news media in Diary downplays the zombie outbreak and in this way, spurs it on as the population is not prepared to start putting the aforementioned bullets between the eyes of their now undead      friends, family and colleagues. Romero anoints bloggers and online video feeds as the purveyors of the truth in the film, but doesn't fail to point out that these individuals are driven as much by their egos as they are by their need to share the truth with the Internet massive.

That said, it's a great addition to Romero's oeuvre. Plus, there are some awesome kills here, including a brain-melting acid sequence and some really great archery moments, courtesy of the student film teams boozy old professor (he was on the archery squad at Eton of course!).