ZombieDiaries

Zombie Diaries (2006)

The movie starts out with a group of English soldiers securing a farm. Then it quickly jumps to a documentary being made by a group of reporters in England. They leave London to go do an interview with a farmer in a rural village. As they are leaving they hear reports that an epidemic that has been plaguing some Asian countries has reached the west and infected New York as well as a small town in England. They continue on their way to the farm, which is deserted, and then to the little nearby village which is also deserted, where their car breaks down. While there they find out that the epidemic has hit London and parts of the city are being sealed off. They decide to hunker down in the farmhouse that night and after dark falls they find zombies in the house. They flee the house to find a hoard of zombies outside and run through the hoard into the woods. The movie then jumps ahead one month and starts over with a different group of people, a husband and wife who have picked up a guy with a video camera who is now filming them. They are running low on supplies and have to stop to scavenge for food in one of the towns that have been infected with zombies. The get supplies, see some zombies and drive away. The movie then moves on to a third group of people, standing around in a field, shooting zombies in the head. They are survivors living on a small farm in the middle of nowhere, England. The movie follows them for a while as they try to stay alive, flashing back only once to deal with the scavenging group again. Once things are resolved on the farm, the film goes forward a month again to finish up what happened with the news crew that was doing the documentary. Finally, it goes back to the soldiers that secure the farm and find one last survivor there.

There are several problems with this movie. It jumps around a lot and the storyline is a bit hard to follow. Even after watching it there are quite a few unanswered questions and I think you could understand it much better after watching it a second time. Unfortunately, I don't really feel like watching it a second time. The choppy camera work goes with the documentary/random people with cameras feel, but it doesn't really help make this movie anything special. The acting isn't bad but isn't great and you never really get that much of a connection with any of the characters. There are a few pretty good special effects, mostly good makeup, but none that are spectacular. I think the storyline would be ok if you could follow it better, but it's really only got one good twist in it. The main problem, however, is that this movie is really slow going and boring at times with little action, character development, witty dialog or anything else worth watching. It probably would have been better if it was just a half an hour long and cut out several of the extra useless scenes.

It's not the worst movie I've seen. I didn't want to claw out my eyes after watching it. I can't really suggest it to anyone other than a hardcore zombie movie lover who just needs his fix, can't find anything else to watch and just needs something to stem off the withdrawal. Even then, you might be better off re-watching a classic you've already seen a hundred times before.

1 out of 4

Reviewed by Scott Schwarzwalder