World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries

What can I add that hasn't already been said in the other reviews? Well, I sat through it and at no point did I consider turning it off. So that has to be a big PLUS right? I turned TRON:Legacy off halfway through but for very different reasons so I won't use it as a benchmark ...

I haven't seen the original Zombie Diaries so had no frame of reference which may or may not be a good thing. Suffice to say that while I can't argue against what has been expressed by others, I cant say that I found it as bad as it is claimed. And it IS bad! However, if (and i do mean IF) you can look past the poor acting (They do at least TRY!), barren script and poor direction then it MAY just be worth 90 mins of your life.

This film is not about zombies in the way that Romero's films tend to be. In WotD it would be possible to replace the undead with other elements such as rednecks or bikers and still get the same results. WotD appears to focus on the main characters - which is very difficult given the script! What makes WotD watchable is its Point-of-View (PoV) technique - it's almost entirely seen through a Handy/Steady Cam of a military journalist 'embedded' with the unit. This alone saves the film from being appalling - as many editorial gaffes and directorial no-nos are hidden or avoided completely.

If, after reading these reviews, you DO decide to give it a go then be prepared to switch it off. If you're a zombie fan like myself then it MIGHT we worth your while.

You have been fairly warned ....

3/10

The found footage genre is all the rage nowadays. From 2008's "Cloverfield", "REC" and "Diary of the Dead" to the likes of the "Paranormal Activity" movies and "The Last Exorcism", people love watching horror films about horrific events caught on camera. Back in 2006, we a little movie called "The Zombie Diaries", which told stories of people with a camera filming their lives as the world fell through a zombie epidemic. I wasn't too wild about the movie, but it did good enough for a sequel to exist. Too bad said sequel seriously sucks.

The movie starts out in fine form, as we catch a night in the lives of a family trying to live on in a world in which the dead walk. Too bad it's only footage that was found by military types. Said soldiers find a civilian named Leeann (Alix Wilton Reagan), as well as possible hope when talk of a boat rescuing survivors. However, this may be at long reach, as our intrepid soldiers must not only survive the walking dead, but also murderous survivalists, and the possibility that salvation isn't going to turn out the way they wanted.

I'll give the movie this much: the acting is good, but that's the only compliment I can give this movie. The first (and probably biggest) problem with "The Zombie Diaries 2" is the fact that you really don't care about anyone here except maybe the family in the beginning. That's because there really isn't any characterization here, as these are just your typical stock survivors and army people trying to survive, to the usual psychopaths that stalk a apocalyptic world. Everyone here feels like a facsimile of a person. The direction also feels a bit "meh", as it's all edited erratically and the usual shaky cam that shows up in these movies makes some of the action a bit confusing. There's a bit of gore, but it's the usual shotguns blasts to the head and flesh munching that you've seen in so many other zombie movies.

Which leads to my next complaint-there's nothing here that sets this apart from other found footage horror movies or zombie movies. The whole thing feels uninspired, with no real reason to care about who lives or who dies, or what happens next. Also, did we really need three rape scenes?

You've seen this kind of movie before, so there's really no reason to bother watching it. You're better off watching "Day of the Dead" or waiting for the next season of "The Walking Dead" than sitting through this.

Remember that bit in the Zombie Dead where they let all the zombies into the house because 'maybe its the house they want'? Well, within the first five minutes of this film, during a zombie epidemic, some guy leaves his family to go out and check out a noise, then his wife leaves their kid in the house to look for him (while filming, of course), then runs back into the house and keeps the camera focused on her kid while something climbs the stairs, enters the room, and then kills them both. That's not a good start to any film.

Some army guys (one with a camera of course) have to take to their heels and leave their base after the gates get open. They had for the coast with a view to getting to Holland, and run into zombies and some raping redneck types. Now, I'm all for zombie films, and this film works when the army takes on the dead, either in the base or in a house they end up in, but when these rapist guys show up, the film heads towards Straw Dogs territory where they torture and attempt to rape on of the soldiers. It's not pleasant to watch and puts a dampener on the rest of the film, which wasn't much to begin with.

You'd need to suspend your belief if you want any enjoyment out of this found footage film. In this world, when someone drops the camera, someone else picks it up and immediately starts filming. This film had some good points but it didn't need the rape and torture stuff - that's a genre I tend to avoid.

Also: Do the British army use the phrase 'clicks' when talking about distance?

I bought this after seeing positive reviews on amazon. I wish I hadn't.

The two leads -philip brody and alix wilton regan- are decent in this but I didn't see any need to replace Victoria Nalder who was the only good actor in the first film.

The problem I have with this is about half the movie is shot in nightvision or infra red or whatever its called. It gives a luminous green negative effect which I find irritating and difficult to watch.

The rest deals with a gang of badly acted rapists (Russell Jones returning from Zombie Diaries 1) which is both unpleasant and badly made. Goke is so poorly realised by Jones that he poses no threat. I felt that the whole interlude was a prurient attempt to pad out the film and provide a focus for the story.

As with other films by these people there's a lot of sexual violence and misogyny which is all a bit unsettling. I didn't enjoy it.

Most of this film is instantly forgettable, acting is so so, story is generic and doesnt hold on any one concept long enough for it to have any real impact. I would have given this a 2/10 except the ending was very good, I really liked that, too little too late really though.