Wow. This movie was crappy.

[Yojimbo]

The one point I would make here is that hospital workers would probably still be going to work. The medical profession tends to attrack savior types. Nurses, EMTs, and doctors all tend to have a "rise to the call" mentality. To them these kinds of situations are their moment to shine. They wouldn't abandon the hospitals until things got really bad. My current thinking on the hospital staff is that the place was so small and rural that the couple of zombies we saw in medical apparel might've been the only staff on duty at that late hour. I don't know about all medical staff in general being cut from that mold. I can say that I previously was a unit manager for an Urgent Care Clinic at a major Los Angeles Hospital, and maybe because the workers were unionized, or maybe it was something unique to my hospital, but very few of the staff I worked with had that sort of mentality. Not to say that there are not folks out there with that sort of character (I have faith in my fellow man that there are people out there like that) but I think that the majority of the staff I worked with would have bailed at the first sign of danger, save for maybe a few doctors and a few nurses who I knew were solid. But I agree that it is possible given the location of the hosptial that the zombies were what remained of the night shift. And really, if you co-worker nurse at the medical clinic got killed by a supposedly dead guy, and then the dead co-worker nurse turned around and bit the Doctor on duty in the neck, killing him, I really wonder if even the most hardcore hero types would stick around. My guess is that they would have split to go home and take care of their families, like most folks would. Admittedly, though I like to think that I am a good person who cares about my fellow man, I myself might opt to split from work to take care of my family instead of staying on the job.

[jdog]

rip on me if you must but i liked land and diary so there. lol

[mista_mo]

I agree with my fellow canuck. Diary was a good film, and like any film, not everyone is going to enjoy it. So it's not critically acclaimed? I still enjoyed it, and am watching it right at this moment. the acting was a little stiff from some, but great from others, believable (too an extent) and i liked the characters. I still wish texas chicks titties had've been on screen for a little longer though.

[Redman6565]

I found Diary down right funny.

[SRP76]

I found Diary down right funny. I laughed at the part where the girl tries to shoot herself in the head, and misses. How the hell do you miss your own head?! You sure as hell should know exactly where it is at all times.

[ProfessorChaos]

either she was a coward or shaking very badly. i knew a guy who tried to kill himself in high school. he used a very small handgun, i believe it was a .22, and shot himself in the side of the forehead. i guess he missed his temple and didn't do any damage his temporal artery. once he realized he wasn't dead, he just went home or something. his parents found him in bed the next morning and he was taken to the hospital. i've only seen him once since then, and he seemed so normal (in demeanor and appearance, no scars) that i forgot about the incident. only later did i remember what he did. anywho, i hear he's doing well now.

[Yojimbo]

either she was a coward or shaking very badly. i knew a guy who tried to kill himself in high school. he used a very small handgun, i believe it was a .22, and shot himself in the side of the forehead. i guess he missed his temple and didn't do any damage his temporal artery. once he realized he wasn't dead, he just went home or something. his parents found him in bed the next morning and he was taken to the hospital. i've only seen him once since then, and he seemed so normal (in demeanor and appearance, no scars) that i forgot about the incident. only later did i remember what he did. anywho, i hear he's doing well now. Dudes, this is not uncommon. The human skull is pretty durable, and lots of folks who try to shoot themselves in the head fail to kill themselves. In fact, I have heard that the majority of suicides attempts are failures and that it is a very small percentage of folks -- even outside of guns and jumping off of bridges, etc -- that end up doing the job correctly. Sad though! Imagine that you feel like a failure and try to kill yourself, only to fail at that too.

[SRP76]

The only ones that fail are the ones that don't really want to kill themselves. If you want to blow your own head off, there's no excuse for missing it. The thing's the size of basketball. Muzzle between the eyebrows, blam, job done. The girl in the movie just couldn't figure that out; she ended up with a scrape along the side of her empty head. She was either not trying very hard, or she was retarded. Maybe both. Either way, she wasn't a character that anyone cared about anyway; 5 minutes after she finally kicked the bucket, everyone in the theater forgot she ever existed. So the attempt at getting a heart-wrenching, sorrowful reaction out of the audience wound up being a massive failure. Much like the "professor's" constant crying about nonsense (a gun is "too easy to use"? WTF is that stupidity all about?), and almost everything else that happened in the movie.

[Redman6565]

I laughed at the part where the girl tries to shoot herself in the head, and misses. How the hell do you miss your own head?! You sure as hell should know exactly where it is at all times. HAHA what do you expect from an 'anti-second amendment' college student? The only ones that fail are the ones that don't really want to kill themselves. If you want to blow your own head off, there's no excuse for missing it. The thing's the size of basketball. Muzzle between the eyebrows, blam, job done. The girl in the movie just couldn't figure that out; she ended up with a scrape along the side of her empty head. She was either not trying very hard, or she was retarded. Maybe both. Either way, she wasn't a character that anyone cared about anyway; 5 minutes after she finally kicked the bucket, everyone in the theater forgot she ever existed. So the attempt at getting a heart-wrenching, sorrowful reaction out of the audience wound up being a massive failure. Much like the "professor's" constant crying about nonsense (a gun is "too easy to use"? WTF is that stupidity all about?), and almost everything else that happened in the movie. I like your point about not caring when it came to the gal who couldn't shoot her self in the head. Sad thing for me is that this feeling carried over to all the characters in Diary. Even the professor. Didn't that character seem like a mix of the drunk dude in Day and Rambo? Question: does anyone else feel the way I do concerning the characters in Diary?

[ProfessorChaos]

Answer: i didn't care for any of the characters either. most were pretty annoying, come to think of it. and you're dead-on when you mention how disposable they all were. too bad they didn't all die. that's not to say i didn't enjoy the film, but it'll probably end up gathering dust along with land of the dead.

[hadrian0117]

...My current thinking on the hospital staff is that the place was so small and rural that the couple of zombies we saw in medical apparel might've been the only staff on duty at that late hour. That does make sense. The last time I went to the ER it was a small town hospital and the ER was staffed by two nurses and a doctor they could call from another part of the hospital. Even if there's only 2-3 people on duty in the ER the rest of the hospital would still be filled with patients, nurses, aids, etc. Let's not forget about the morgue either. Perhaps most of the zombies were trapped in their rooms. Hell, the staff probally tried putting several of them in restraints thinking they were still alive.

[Trin]

@Yojimbo - I'm in the midwest. I've been told that LA medical staff (and California in general) has a whole different mindset. Our nurses are not union. We stop and help people on the side of the road too. @Redman - I hated many of the characters too. Some made it up to didn't hate. I want to watch the DVD before I declare them all below liked. I remember liking some of them after walking out of the theater. Deb was one I liked, except when she was talking of course.

[Mike70]

. Sad though! Imagine that you feel like a failure and try to kill yourself, only to fail at that too. i know i shouldn't laugh but i can't help it. yojimbo is dead right about the failed suicides. it isn't all that unheard of for someone to shot themselves in the head and survive - esp if the person has put the gun up against some part of their face.

[bassman]

yojimbo is dead right about the failed suicides. it isn't all that unheard of for someone to shot themselves in the head and survive - esp if the person has put the gun up against some part of their face. I couldn't help it. I've always wondered....was the narrator trying to really kill himself or was his plan to shoot through his cheek?

[C5NOTLD]

I thought the warehouse scene had it too. I don't see why people say this film didn't have that feeling. Obviously it didn't have as much of it as his old films, but for a "on the road" flick, I thought it covered it well. The warehouse scene did have it. I wished they would have followed those guys for the entire film rather than film students.