Dead corpses reanimate during a TV newscast and start chewing on ambulance personal. These are the flesh-eating zombies who first appeared in director George A Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). They wander around looking for victims, which understandably causes much chaos. Meanwhile, in a secluded woodsy area, some Pittsburgh college students are making an amateur horror movie. We follow this group through the remainder of the film. The fictional filmmaker most involved is Josh Close (as Jason Creed). "Diary of the Dead" is narrated by his girlfriend, Michelle Morgan (as Debra Moynihan)...

This begins with the "subject" of broadcast journalism turning on the broadcaster. Thereafter, it seems to comment more on the topic, or perhaps not - whatever the intent, interest is not maintained. However, the "Media" is a deserved whipping boy. Some nicely staged gore splatters around, but to indifferent effect. One of the better sequences occurs when the cast goes to the home of wealthy "Mummy" actor Philip Riccio (as Ridley) as it successfully parallels the introduction of the characters. Something masterful was possible, but the "shaky camera" ruins everything. Next time, let the dead try steadying the camera.

**** Diary of the Dead (9/8/07) George A. Romero ~ Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Joe Dinicol, Shawn Roberts

DIARY OF THE DEAD is another zombie movie from genre founder George A. Romero, this time combining the found footage and zombie genres into a supposedly fresh and original product. What it turns out to be is a crushing disappointment in every respect, especially so given that Romero himself invented the modern zombie genre pretty much single-handedly.

DIARY OF THE DEAD isn't just a bad film; it's a bad film even by found footage standards. It's not the first found footage zombie film I've seen, and I can report that the same year's Spanish zombie flick REC is about a hundred times better than this movie. What we get here is a cheap, slapdash, and completely boring zombie story as a bunch of uninteresting characters wander around a world which is quickly being taken over by the undead.

This film looks and feels cheap throughout and Greg Nicotero's zombie effects are surprisingly cheesy looking, which I guess comes down to budget again. The script is awful, merely attempting to reheat former themes (us vs. them, the breakdown of society, there's even a militant black guy) instead of delivering anything new. The attempted scare scenes are anything but frightening and the story is so predictable that everything that happens is signposted way in advance. Of the cast, the worst actress gets the lead role, with the likable Tatiana Maslany hidden way down in the cast list. DIARY OF THE DEAD is a complete bore and it's difficult to credit this to the man behind the classic DEAD trilogy.

Once again Pittsburgh (filmed in Toronto) is ground zero for the zombie apocalypse. A group of students makes their way east in a Winnebago. Mary, the driver, shoots herself after she laments about killing three dead people with Winnebago, clearly, the difference between the sexes as a guy would be notching the dashboard. I liked the Amish guy. They clearly did too much traveling in the vehicle when they had many places to settle down and board themselves in.

Guide: F-word. Very brief nudity. I blink, I missed it. Nobody slept with Harvey Weinstein to be in this film as far as we know.