Listened to the latest ep, and I’ve got to throw into the pot, regarding George Romero.
In all honesty if you look at most of the directors who have given us the ‘classic’ standards of the horror genre, every one of them has shit the bed in one way or another with less than favorable films. Some are more guilty than others, but nobody has walked away unscathed without dropping a few bum crumbs along the path. Even guys like Cronenberg put out a few bombs like Spider, and M Butterfly.
Now, i’m not making any excuses for Romero, or for anybody else for that matter. On the contrary, I think that directors should be recognized for their current projects, and not just the ‘Classics’.
For every ‘Bruiser’ that George gave us, he also gave us ‘Martin’. I can think of 5 Romero films that stand on their own, albeit there’s more i’d rather forget. Which brings us to Diary Of The Dead…..
In a recent interview Romero had said that the entire process of shooting ‘Land Of The Dead’ was a pain in the ass. He was under the gun with both the budget, and studio deadline, but still managed to put out a film that was fair to middling, considering the circumstance.
George then goes on to say that he wanted to return to shooting a picture with a smaller crew, at his own pace,etc, and that’s how Diary Of The Dead came to fruition.
Now seeing as that all the factors seemed to had fallen in place for Romero, you would have figured that he’d be firing on all cylinders, and deliver the goods. Unfortunately, such was NOT the case, and there’s no excuse whatsoever that can explain why Diary turned out to be such a rancid pool of bubbling asswater.
George said that he wanted to return to his, ‘roots’, but I can’t remember Night Of The Living Dead ever being this flaccid, and pedestrian. If I hadn’t known better, I would sworn that someone else had directed this, and George had just been given a credit as an exec producer.
It bothers me that Romero has said several times that he considers his audience and ‘horror fans’ to be intelligent, and on the ball. All throughout Diary I felt like Romero was under the impression he was making a film for smurfin idiots. I don’t feel the need to be pimp slapped with messages, and ideologies in a film, regardless on whether I agree with it or not.
The characters were as stale as week old bread, and it was an endurance test to wait to watch them get picked off. While the KNB effects were great, it was a matter of too little to late.
All in all, even though I really loathed Diary, I still haven’t lost my support in George and any project he decides to take on. Instead of putting down the camera, maybe George needs to step away from the whole ‘Dead’ subgenre, and try to do something eclectic like he did with Martin, and Knightriders. I just fear that a ‘Diary’ sequel will only leave fresh skidmarks.
From the bottom of the Barrel - Ghetto Tim
