Zombie Diaries 2

Having seen the first "The Zombie Diaries", I wanted to watch through part 2 as well. Not because I was overly impressed with the first one, but simply because it is a zombie movie and because I love all things zombie.

It was painfully clear that they had a bigger budget behind them this time in this production, and that really helped the movie along a good deal. Now with that being said, then let me just nail it clear that the whole hand-held camera point of view is not in my liking. So seeing a whole movie through that point of view was a notch down in the enjoyment of the movie for me.

Looking at the DVD cover I think to myself 'what the...?' The cover has two solders on it, yeah they are in the movie. Alright. But then in the background there is a metropolis in ruin and in flames. Right. Well there were no metropolis in the movie. The entire movie took place in a military base, a forest, a small village and a military bunker! Moving on, in front of this crumbling metropolis is a vast army of zombies. Again, what? There weren't that many zombies in the movie. Come on! The DVD cover was a total scam! It had very little to do with the actual movie, and it is a cheap trick to lure people in.

The zombies in "World of the Dead" could have been done more to make them look like zombies. It was basically just people with some wounds here and there. That whole gore and gross decomposition effect was lacking and it made the zombies look more like drunken stumbling buffoons.

Having seen "World of the Dead" now, I can scratch it off the list, and I can say that it is not a zombie movie that I will be watching a second time, because it had no real appeal and it just didn't have enough contents to make it worth a second watching. "World of the Dead" is good if you are a zombie aficionado and just have to watch zombie movies for the heck of it. Other than that, there is little new to be seen in this movie.

Most of this film is instantly forgettable, acting is so so, story is generic and doesnt hold on any one concept long enough for it to have any real impact. I would have given this a 2/10 except the ending was very good, I really liked that, too little too late really though.

What can I add that hasn't already been said in the other reviews? Well, I sat through it and at no point did I consider turning it off. So that has to be a big PLUS right? I turned TRON:Legacy off halfway through but for very different reasons so I won't use it as a benchmark ...

I haven't seen the original Zombie Diaries so had no frame of reference which may or may not be a good thing. Suffice to say that while I can't argue against what has been expressed by others, I cant say that I found it as bad as it is claimed. And it IS bad! However, if (and i do mean IF) you can look past the poor acting (They do at least TRY!), barren script and poor direction then it MAY just be worth 90 mins of your life.

This film is not about zombies in the way that Romero's films tend to be. In WotD it would be possible to replace the undead with other elements such as rednecks or bikers and still get the same results. WotD appears to focus on the main characters - which is very difficult given the script! What makes WotD watchable is its Point-of-View (PoV) technique - it's almost entirely seen through a Handy/Steady Cam of a military journalist 'embedded' with the unit. This alone saves the film from being appalling - as many editorial gaffes and directorial no-nos are hidden or avoided completely.

If, after reading these reviews, you DO decide to give it a go then be prepared to switch it off. If you're a zombie fan like myself then it MIGHT we worth your while.

You have been fairly warned ....

3/10

I am a big fan of the genre, however this was a terrible effort. A sequel to a narrowly passable film. Full of poor acting, plot holes and is hard to watch physically and mentally. Shot in night vision for some part (very poorly shot) made the first half and the ending part hard to watch. A group of poor acted thugs, depicting disturbing scenes of rape and murder, this is zombie horror, somehow it begins to border on being a disturbing snuff film. Also the original idea is the hand-held camera is on too keep track of the post apocalyptic world, when under heavy zombie attack, murderous gangs and other peril i doubt there would be a semi steady handed guy filming.

I bought this after seeing positive reviews on amazon. I wish I hadn't.

The two leads -philip brody and alix wilton regan- are decent in this but I didn't see any need to replace Victoria Nalder who was the only good actor in the first film.

The problem I have with this is about half the movie is shot in nightvision or infra red or whatever its called. It gives a luminous green negative effect which I find irritating and difficult to watch.

The rest deals with a gang of badly acted rapists (Russell Jones returning from Zombie Diaries 1) which is both unpleasant and badly made. Goke is so poorly realised by Jones that he poses no threat. I felt that the whole interlude was a prurient attempt to pad out the film and provide a focus for the story.

As with other films by these people there's a lot of sexual violence and misogyny which is all a bit unsettling. I didn't enjoy it.