Finally watched Diary

[deadpunk]

So, question for you guys... Is "Why Diary is Land's Bitch and the Reasons Both Should Bow Before Dawn '04" too long for a thread title?

[SRP76]

I can believe that there are that many neighboring towns. What i find it hard to believe is (the population can't be that high) that they would produce 100 corpses in less than 3 days and even harder to believe is that they would all congregate around the farmhouse. As for turned vs. recently deceased, most of the ghouls had no obvious psysical trauma to speak of. The ones that did we have no evidence if it was pre or post mortem. Zombie activity produced 7 on-screen corpses in about an hour and half. It doesn't take too many chompings of entire families to produce a bunch of zombies.

[Mike70]

Please don't. The last thing we need is another repeat of the Land/Dawn04 threads. i'll second that. diary would've been better without the voice overs and if it had been shot 3rd person. i'm pretty well sick of first person flicks. a lot of the characters don't do much for me either, esp. jason. that fucker would've been wearing that camera as a necklace. "last chance, dude. put the camera down and get your head in the fucking game or i'll give you an alternate view of forced perspective." hell, if i'd been the dude with the gun in that situation, there would've been a short and extremely one-sided discussion of the matter. ---------- Post added at 01:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 PM ---------- even harder to believe is that they would all congregate around the farmhouse. yeah, zombies seem to have some fascination for being farmers or maybe they just want to get away from it all. i find that odd in zombie movies. the out of the way, rural location that in the course of a 90 minute movie becomes a sort of zombie woodstock. it's like a bunch of zombies got together and were like, "hey, let's go out to where there are hardly any people at all." makes no real sense when you think of it.

[JDFP]

It wasn't my intention to start this thread to bash Diary. However, this is a Romero dead film message board, and having just viewed the movie, I felt I could go ahead and give my honest opinion of the film. My apologies if you felt I was finger pointing at you, I wasn't intentionally singling out any one person. Of course you should give your honest opinion of the film, and you did a great job of expressing your thoughts. I just got a little flustered at other folks on here opening up a field day in ripping "DIARY" apart again without anyone pointing out the tragedy known as "LAND" which I feel is an inferior film. Again, no finger pointing at any one individual intended. j.p.

[darth los]

Zombie activity produced 7 on-screen corpses in about an hour and half. It doesn't take too many chompings of entire families to produce a bunch of zombies. I don't know how one can tell how much movie time lapses vs. real time but o.k , let's go with that. That's my whole thing though. You're assuming that there were families that were getting chomped. How was that supposed to happen in this extremely early stage when even you must concede the vast majority of the ghouls walking around at this point where those that died of "natural" causes? Sure there might be a few instances like that of Uncle Rege but it just seems far fetched that even most families would go through a similar scenario at exactly the same time. And in an hour and a half no less!?! Once we have established that it just seems like there were too many ghouls around for that rural of an area in addition to the time frame we're talking about. There are arguments both ways and i understand what you and D.P. (Best accronym of a screen name ever by the way) but i still don't buy it. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

[SRP76]

I don't know how one can tell how much movie time lapses vs. real time but o.k , let's go with that. That's my whole thing though. You're assuming that there were families that were getting chomped. How was that supposed to happen in this extremely early stage when even you must concede the vast majority of the ghouls walking around at this point where those that died of "natural" causes? Sure there might be a few instances like that of Uncle Rege but it just seems far fetched that even most families would go through a similar scenario at exactly the same time. And in an hour and a half no less!?! Once we have established that it just seems like there were too many ghouls around for that rural of an area in addition to the time frame we're talking about. There are arguments both ways and i understand what you and D.P. (Best accronym of a screen name ever by the way) but i still don't buy it. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. The simple fact that "Uncle Rege" was eaten tells us that zombies had already overrun that area before our heroes even arrived. If zombies weren't the ones who ate him, who did? It HAD to be ghouls. Not to mention the fact that they weren't on the outskirts of Otherworld there. They were only a couple miles outside a town of several thousand. Which, by Ben's account, was pretty much a slaughterhouse. The Coopers got their car turned by a mob just a mile up the road from the house. There was a cemetery literally across the street. The house wasn't far from a lake where Tom and Judy were going for some swimming (in other words, a popular recreational site), and they HAD NO CAR. I doubt they were out for a 50-mile walk. So they had to live right nearby, and the lake was nearby as well. And then there's the fact that there were probably plenty of neighbors, just not within the 100 yards or so that gets shown around the house. No telling how many other farmhouses were located along that road. So there was a lot of population to draw zombies from, and not far away to begin with. It's not like 10 people 1000 miles from civilization produced 100 zombies.

[Mike70]

The simple fact that "Uncle Rege" was eaten tells us that zombies had already overrun that area before our heroes even arrived. If zombies weren't the ones who ate him, who did? It HAD to be ghouls. if i'm not mistaken, uncle rege died of natural causes earlier that day, then reanimated. tom says something like, "i know he's dead. stone cold dead. he died this morning. me and judy came over to be with..." i've always taken that to mean that uncle rege died naturally (heart attack or what not) then reanimated during the first wave.

[SRP76]

if i'm not mistaken, uncle rege died of natural causes earlier that day, then reanimated. tom says something like, "i know he's dead. stone cold dead. he died this morning. me and judy came over to be with..." i've always taken that to mean that uncle rege died naturally (heart attack or what not) then reanimated during the first wave. I don't recall that. I just recall a chewed-up corpse on the second-floor landing, and Tom saying that they simply knew the house was there, and they entered. Are you talking about the remake?

[krakenslayer]

I don't recall that. I just recall a chewed-up corpse on the second-floor landing, and Tom saying that they simply knew the house was there, and they entered. Are you talking about the remake? I think what happened was Uncle Rege died of natural causes (he was the fat zombie Barb fights in the house) and then attacked and tried to kill his son. The kid couldn't handle it, so he took the shotgun and blew the back of his own head off "Dawn apartment trooper"-style (he still has the gun barrel in his mouth when Ben finds him). The Uncle Rege zombie then eats off the kid's arm, which later falls through the bannister onto Barb when the Rege zombie is disturbed. And yeah, this is all in the remake. I thought we were talking about the remake because there is no Uncle Rege in the original, just an old woman with her face eaten off by zombies.

[darth los]

if i'm not mistaken, uncle rege died of natural causes earlier that day, then reanimated. tom says something like, "i know he's dead. stone cold dead. he died this morning. me and judy came over to be with..." i've always taken that to mean that uncle rege died naturally (heart attack or what not) then reanimated during the first wave. I don't recall that. I just recall a chewed-up corpse on the second-floor landing, and Tom saying that they simply knew the house was there, and they entered. Are you talking about the remake? The chewed up corpse on the second floor was Tom's cousin/Uncle Rege's son. Tom's acount was that his uncle died naturally, revived and came after his cousin who couldn't bring himself to shoot his dad so he shot himself. Tom, armed with the shotgun couldn't do it either so they fled to the basement.

[Mike70]

I don't recall that. I just recall a chewed-up corpse on the second-floor landing, and Tom saying that they simply knew the house was there, and they entered. Are you talking about the remake? yeah, the remake. got our wires crossed. decent point about the body on the landing in the original film. he either ate himself or something helped itself to human tartar.

[darth los]

They were only a couple miles outside a town of several thousand. Which, by Ben's account, was pretty much a slaughterhouse. "Evans city is 5 miles away, we can make 5 miles on freakin' fumes!"~ Harry Cooper I would hardly call 5 miles outskirts but i see your point.

[SRP76]

Apologies to the original poster, but I have to clarify for this side-discussion: Everything I'm using is from the original moive, not the remake. A. I hate remakes. B. I've only seen the Night remake one time, and long ago, so I don't know much about it. On-topic: Yes, I agree, Diary sucks.

[JDFP]

Yes, I agree, Diary sucks. ... but not as badly as "LAND". I agree though that "DIARY" was by no means a great flick, but for me it was more entertaining than most zombie flicks that are made (such as "The Zombie Diaries" and the "Day" remake -- both of these films made "DIARY" look like an Academy Award-winning film in comparison), and "LAND" is still the only Romero zombie flick that I've seen that I try to avoid watching at all costs just because it doesn't work for me. I'm going to be waiting until I re-watch "DIARY" again (and perhaps force myself into watching "LAND" again) before posting my thread on why "DIARY" is superior to "LAND", but here's a preview for Reason # 1: Big Daddy is in "LAND", and while "DIARY" has whiny spoiled teens in it, it does not have perhaps the most ridiculous and overwhelmingly horrid creation of a zombie known as Big Daddy in it to groan and attempt to make us "empathize" with the rotting puss-carrier at all the opportune moments. + 1 for "DIARY" right there for me. The whole idea of Big Daddy not being in "DIARY" almost automatically makes it overwhelmingly better for me as a zombie flick, apart from the many, many other reasons why I feel it's a better zombie movie. j.p.

[Mike70]

I agree though that "DIARY" was by no means a great flick, but for me it was more entertaining than most zombie flicks that are made (such as "The Zombie Diaries" and the "Day" remake -- both of these films made "DIARY" look like an Academy Award-winning film in comparison), dude, most recent zombie flicks make a documentary on the mating habits of sand fleas look like a must watch.