World of the Dead: Zombie Diaries 2

Introduction

Sometimes from little acorns grow huge trees, and from small independent films comes something akin to success. This is the case regarding a small low budget film called The Zombie Diaries. Released at the same time as Shaun of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, The Zombie Diaries took off in a way quite unexpected by the filmmakers and suddenly they were given a full time producer to help them out plus the financing to make a slightly bigger film, albeit still a straight to DVD release, and here it is...

Three months have passed since a viral outbreak wiped out 99.9% of the UK's population and turned its victims into flesh-eating living dead. A surviving band of Territorial soldiers and civilians have taken refuge in a rural military barracks in Hertfordshire, making raids on the local but overrun towns for food and supplies. This is a tough and brutal life for these men and women, there numbers dwindling due to the overwhelming numbers of zombies.

The remaining survivors get wind of a radio message suggesting that there is a safe haven in Rotterdam and ships evacuating survivors from the East coast will leave in two days. Just as they're busy processing this, disaster strikes as a massive horde of zombies overruns the complex, only a handful of the soldiers escaping along with a woman who seems to be a little crazy or disturbed or both.

Led by Corporal Maddox (Philip Brodie), the rest of the gang are expert riflewoman Kayne (Vocky Araico) and her cohort Carter (Okorie Chukwu). Journalist Leeann (Alix Wilton Regan) has suffered some past trauma and was locked up for her and others safety, but Maddox is reluctant to leave her to the invading zombies. Last man standing is Sergeant Jonesy (Rob Oldfield) who bizarrely leaves command of the rag tag group to Maddox despite outranking him and even more bizarrely is only armed with a camera which he is using to document all that happens to them.

The group quickly discover that getting hold of transport is not that easy and therefore embark on the long trek across land to the location of their apparent salvation with not only hordes of zombies in their way but also gangs of survivors who seem to beout to kill or rape anyone they fancy, alive or undead...

Picture

Aside from an opening and closing sequence, the entire film is shot from the perspective of the Jonesy character using a hand-held camera. It's clearly a quality camera as it manages daylight shots, night shots with a torch and also green-lit night visions with no loss of quality detectable anywhere. It must also be said that the black levels are very good, adding to the foreboding atmosphere that permeates the entire piece.

Extras

Behind The Scenes - relatively short but to the point featurette featuring the filmmakers telling us about the genesis of the project as well as the problems caused by the big freeze and smow fall of late 2010.

Commentary - the two filmmakers provide a rather good commentary on what's going on, with each leaving the other to tell the viewer what's going on, depending on which one has the greater insight. This makes for an interesting commentary as each gives the other space to talk without talking over each other.

Overall

There've been more than a few zombie films recently, in fact I have at least a couple more in my pending pile to review at some point in the near future. This is actually one of the better ones I've seen recently and mainly I suspect because it concentrates on the military aspect of the genre, rather than the hapless lone civilian survivors. This is reflected in the script, apparently vetted by a military advisor, where I felt the actions and words of the soldiers were pretty much spot on, although they were weekend warriors rather than full timers, so any mistakes could be dressed off as inexperience. I also didn't have my usual complaint about helicopter landing pad berets as only one character seemed to be wearing one and he made quite a decent fist out of it.

The camera style worked really well as an immersion technique, whatever the setting of the camera. It's true that there was some rather pointless bits in the script, such as finding zombies in the cellar of the house and the characters just running, rather than trying to secure themselves in. The gang element added something slightly different, but also I thought went a little too far in terms of tracking down the soldiers. Admittedly they appear to have been in the previous film and may well have enjoyed the company of Leeann previously (one sided obviously...) so this may well have provided a more rewarding viewing experience for those who had seen it. I just felt it was an unnecessary distraction in the end.

Overall the film is pretty bleak, as you would expect from the genre, but it is a rather well made film with a potential third film and franchise in the offing. If you like zombie films, this one is for you...