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.

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

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.

I think if this film had been filmed with conventional movie-making techniques it might have been enjoyable. Those of the cast who are not returning from the first movie are competent actors and there are moments of cleverness every now and again.

The thing that made it literally unwatchable for me is the shaky-cam.

I've never liked it and it is rarely used well. The editor of this movie is Drew Culingham (umbrage the first vampire). He got his money for nothing. The choppy editing combines with the frenetic camera-work to cause something similar to sea sickness. It made the zombie diaries impossible to watch for me.

I switched off before the end because the editing was so distracting that I couldn't bear to watch any more. Fans of shaky cam might enjoy it.

The found footage genre is all the rage nowadays. From 2008's "Cloverfield", "REC" and "Diary of the Dead" to the likes of the "Paranormal Activity" movies and "The Last Exorcism", people love watching horror films about horrific events caught on camera. Back in 2006, we a little movie called "The Zombie Diaries", which told stories of people with a camera filming their lives as the world fell through a zombie epidemic. I wasn't too wild about the movie, but it did good enough for a sequel to exist. Too bad said sequel seriously sucks.

The movie starts out in fine form, as we catch a night in the lives of a family trying to live on in a world in which the dead walk. Too bad it's only footage that was found by military types. Said soldiers find a civilian named Leeann (Alix Wilton Reagan), as well as possible hope when talk of a boat rescuing survivors. However, this may be at long reach, as our intrepid soldiers must not only survive the walking dead, but also murderous survivalists, and the possibility that salvation isn't going to turn out the way they wanted.

I'll give the movie this much: the acting is good, but that's the only compliment I can give this movie. The first (and probably biggest) problem with "The Zombie Diaries 2" is the fact that you really don't care about anyone here except maybe the family in the beginning. That's because there really isn't any characterization here, as these are just your typical stock survivors and army people trying to survive, to the usual psychopaths that stalk a apocalyptic world. Everyone here feels like a facsimile of a person. The direction also feels a bit "meh", as it's all edited erratically and the usual shaky cam that shows up in these movies makes some of the action a bit confusing. There's a bit of gore, but it's the usual shotguns blasts to the head and flesh munching that you've seen in so many other zombie movies.

Which leads to my next complaint-there's nothing here that sets this apart from other found footage horror movies or zombie movies. The whole thing feels uninspired, with no real reason to care about who lives or who dies, or what happens next. Also, did we really need three rape scenes?

You've seen this kind of movie before, so there's really no reason to bother watching it. You're better off watching "Day of the Dead" or waiting for the next season of "The Walking Dead" than sitting through this.