The heart of any good zombie film - or pseudo zombie film - worth its salt, is the sense of a world turned upside down. A place where the rules have changed instantly, inexplicably and irreversibly. People go through disbelief and denial and eventually - if they manage to live long enough - they come to accept the grim truth, that there is only survival now.

Diary of the Dead may employ the now tired narrative method of "billy films everything"... but then, it does it for FAR more sensible reasons than Cloverfield did "I've got der camera, better film everything DUR!" No, Diary makes more sense in its documenting of the events that occur. In fact, in many senses - it's integral to the story.

Pretty much off the bat, things go South. The dead being so rude as to come back to life. A couple of sensible people decide to head out to the well fortified mansion. The rest decide to just mess around and go home. In a big ol' Winnebago... not the best zombiemobile but it seems to do OK. Naturally, people start out not knowing what's happening - not believing and so on.

The dynamic is different to most other zombie films... we start with a half dozen people, who actually all know one another. There are people along the way but the disparate group of survivors, thrown together by fate isn't present... and that is rather a staple of zombie films - fuelling tension between people. Once everyone gets the whole "dead rising from the grave to feed on the flesh of the living" thing though, they're about as cohesive a group as a group of college students can be.

They take a rather different view to the normal groups... there's no holing up in the nearest mall or barn. People want to get home... or at least they do for a while. Eventually they realise that survival and not family reunion is the way forward. About time. Naturally - it's a Romero film - the military are NO help... negative help... did the military kill his family? Although, in a situation such as envisioned by a zombie apocalypse - it makes sense that the military would end up running the show but really, the interactions with other groups are transitory. In fact, at the perfunctory 90 minutes the film itself feels rather transitory...

There's no real chance for the characters to develop... even those who don't have a camera glued to their face - in yet another example of people wantonly ignoring survival instinct... but that's necessary for the method of storytelling... in fact, it's pertinent to the social commentary of the film. In much the same way that Night of the Living Dead made points about racism and Dawn of the Dead pointedly mocked mindless consumer culture - not to mention the shameless anti-military message of Day of the Dead - Diary of the Dead makes very obvious observations about the nature of the media... the distortions of the government, the distance that one gains from events by filming them... and how voyeurism has become so common place.

As zombie films go... danger seldom feels pressing here. Occasionally there are moments - most notably in the barn when there is a horde of zombies encroaching and the Winnebago needs fixed - but on the whole, the group are merely in a situation where potential danger is present... although, they seem to be totally safe inside their vehicle. Zombies do seem to inexplicably appear en masse at rather convenient intervals - really, you wouldn't think there would be dozens of people hanging out in shambling distance of a barn or remote mansion. In Dawn of the Dead it made sense - zombies were heading to malls because of residual memory... there doesn't seem much reason for them to show up in the middle of nowhere... but then, they're necessary for tension and so on... just as their general absence is necessary for the voyeurism and documentary making to occur.

The commentary is pretty tame compared to the rather stark messages of Romero's original trilogy. It's not exactly as bare faced as zombies walking around a mall, it's just "ooo - the youtube generation!" The compulsion to document. It feels as if the story is really just a vehicle for that observation, it's focused on more than the zombies... naturally, there's a bit of "people are rubbish" too but then that's hardly original. It's all very rushed... even though we're dropped almost immediately into a situation where the characters are aware of events - even if some are sceptical - and yet still it feels as if the film is rushing to get everything tied up in a neat ninety minute package. Which is easily to the detriment of the film. Developing the characters, adding in more action... would have greatly improved things.

In terms of action... well, there's precious little. Which is at least realistic... the kids never come across a handy cache of automatic weapons and instantly know how to use them... but then, neither are they instantly beset with hordes of zombies from nowhere - ok, it happens in the middle of the film and at the end but not nearly as much as in your average zombie film. So, in other words - don't expect this to be on a par with the Resident Evil films or the Dawn of the Dead remake because there isn't a whole lot of zombie shooting here. In that respect, it follows the similarly shot Cloverfield... no excesses of information or action... just pervasive tension.

If you're in the mood for Blair Witch (minus the excessive amounts of incessant screaming and nausea inducing camera shaking) meets zombies... it's probably a good match but it's far from Romero's best work... and even the cringe worthy Land of the Dead was better - although just barely. For Romero and zombie fans only, really.