Zombie Diaries 2: World of the Dead

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.

Yeah, its been made with sincere enough intentions but it's b0llocks. Everyone over-acting like their lives were at stake. It's all a bit embarrassing. The characterisation is non-existent - you just don't give a sh*t about anyone and this is a big mistake in a zombie flick. Some of the set ups had potential but it's all just too amateurish.

IMDb wants me to add more lines but I don't really have anything else to add.

Apparently I still haven't added enough lines - hence this line.

And this one.

Ditto.

I think if this film had been filmed with conventional movie-making techniques it might have been enjoyable. Those of the cast who are not returning from the first movie are competent actors and there are moments of cleverness every now and again.

The thing that made it literally unwatchable for me is the shaky-cam.

I've never liked it and it is rarely used well. The editor of this movie is Drew Culingham (umbrage the first vampire). He got his money for nothing. The choppy editing combines with the frenetic camera-work to cause something similar to sea sickness. It made the zombie diaries impossible to watch for me.

I switched off before the end because the editing was so distracting that I couldn't bear to watch any more. Fans of shaky cam might enjoy it.

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.

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.