Diary of the Dead (movie #101)

When I was a kid, my brother and I weren't allowed to watch horror movies, but my mom thought that if a movie was black and white that it couldn't do us much harm,so she let us watch the original "Night of the Living Dead" from 1968. I was excited to watch that movie at first, even though I thought an old black and white movie couldn't affect me very much, but let me tell you...that movie messed me up. I was young, and I still expected my movies to end with the good guys triumphing over the bad guys, so the kind of downbeat ending that the original NOTLD movie has was something I didn't expect,but I never forgot how that ending made me feel.

This movie is George Romero's latest "Dead" movie, a continuation of his zombie epic that he began over 30 years ago,and to me, this movie had almost as much of an impact on me that the original did back then. A lot of people don't like ":Diary of the Dead," and I get why. It's cheesy at times and a little silly with some bad acting, but that doesn't bother me too much. the movie follows people of my generation, disillusioned college students who live their lives on the internet and get a lot of their news from YouTube. When the world starts to end, news spreads fast, and an amateur film crew of students at a local college decide to drive around the countryside documenting the events to make a film for whoever is left behind.

A lot of the movie is shaky cam footage, and the people in the movie fight amongst each other the way most people do in zombie movies. A lot of that is captured on the film ans the gravity of the situation reaches them and they realize that the world is changing and things will never be the same for them. It's pretty bleak watching people die and watching the film crew slowly lose hope. the movie ends with a scene that I'll never forget (just as the original NOTLD did) asking me "Are we worth saving?" Since I ask the same question myself a lot, so I appreciated this movie even more because of that. This movie isn't perfect, but it really gets under my skin, and I appreciate it for that. In that way, it hearkens back to the power of the original NOTLD and it was the perfect thing for me to watch for my wrap up of the challenge this year.