Un-review: Diary of the Dead

So, I guess it’s officially happened.  When I started this page (back in 1996) I would watch any post-apocalyptic movie, at any time, for any reason.  That’s an easy mission to complete when your life otherwise consists of PBR, insanely loud rock music and ditching class.  Apparently, I’ve hit the freaking wall.  And that wall is called… OLDNESS.

I say that because anymore it might be several weeks before I watch ANY movie, let alone something post-apocalyptic.  A foxy wife, two kids, two businesses, a rock band, etc, etc, really takes it’s toll on a guy.  I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it does cut into my cinema time.  Well anyway, it turned out that tonight had potential to be a movie night.  The kids were already asleep and it was only 8pm.  Hell’s yeah, right?!

So, I started a few movies and stopped them right away for various reasons.

  1. This movie has subtitles, my wife is working on her computer and watching movies (somehow) so subtitles aren’t going to work… moving on
  2. Another movie looked to be some sort of kung-fu action, also seemed like a hard sell to said foxy wife.
  3. More subtitles?!  Seriously, do I have any non-foreign movies?

Then I stumbled on Diary of the Dead.  Instantly I was stoked because it’s very rarely that we can watch a post-apocalyptic movie that I haven’t seen already that is also a major production (that is to say, filmed after 1990 somewhere besides Italy).  I started the movie and was encouraged by the opening scene.  Then there was this 20-something person doing a voiceover about uploading video and true stories and other nonsense.

That’s when I realized that, in some sort of evil Reese’s Peanut Butter cup moment, someone got shitty reality TV in my horror movie.  Yup, the ole movie inside the movie gag.  Ugh.  I let it roll until they got the point where they were literally filming a horror movie inside of the movie inside of the horror movie I was supposed to be watching (about 6 minutes in, I think?) and then I turned it off.

That’s right.  I turned it off.

Why?  Frankly, my freaking life is too damn busy to watch shitty movies.  I have hit the wall.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m still all over B-movies.  In fact, I just watched Infestation (I’ll write something about it soon) and I enjoyed it.  So, it doesn’t take top notch production or story to keep me going.  But, if you have fucking millions of dollars and your name is already famous, then I don’t have time to watch your movie if it sucks.

Hmm… maybe I’m just grumpy today?  I invite any of you to write your own review of Diary of the Dead, if you want.  I’m not saying you are an idiot if you liked it.  I’m just saying that it was 90 minutes that I didn’t have time for.