Thought I'd post a recommendation for a pretty good low budget zombie flick I took in last night on DVD called The Zombie Diaries. It's a British movie so some of CK may already be familiar with it.
It's yet another one of those 'Blair Witch/First person camera' perspective films detailing a zombie infestation growing all over the U.K. Now, it's VERY low budget so don't expect a visual feast or a thousand explosions. This is a cerebral movie that is meant to illustrate the depths of desperation and depravity that human beings will sink to when you take away their laws, technology and hope and turn them into an endangered species.
The best zombie fare, especially George A. Romero's offerings, focus on our waning humanity in the face of such a crisis, and this movie wisely puts the microscope on exactly the same thing: what good are principles in a world without order? What's the point of living when you're always on the run and can never find respite?
I am an unabashed zombie fan. I am not into the movies where the monsters are just enemies to be killed and it's all about how much devastation a few well armed human beings can wreak on their undead cousins (I have video games when I want to indulge that need.) The best zombie movies are subtle, intuitive and force you to ask questions about your humanity, values and viewpoints, all while the omnipresent threat of the living dead is trying to nose its way through the fragile barricades of your temporary sanctuary. What kind of person would you be in a world like this? What kind of race would we become in the face of such a collapse?
The Zombie Diaries does something to highlight the dark side of being human that even Romero's movies, for all their poignance, only gloss over. There are some twisted people out there in our world, just waiting for society to collapse so that they can indulge their depraved predilections without fear of reprisal by society and its laws. Mankind will always be its own worst enemy and this movie showcases that in a truly horrifying fashion at one point. Some people are going to get their thrills out of a world gone mad, regardless of the form the madness takes, and The Zombie Diaries is perhaps a truer and more realistic depiction of such darkness than I've ever seen before. In a zombie movie, anyway.
If you only want to see gory kills and violence, avoid this movie. It is a low budget flick so there isn't a lot of action and it focuses on the human condition. There is no zombie killing catharsis to be found here. It is dark, visceral and real. You may feel the need to take a shower when you're done watching it. A long shower.
Highly recommended but the caveat is that it's NOT the feelgood hit of the fall.
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