Diary of the Dead: 95 minutes. Rated: Unclassified. Director: George Romero. Starring: Debra Moynihan, Joshua Close
'Your films are very Freudian,' observes one fan to the bearded filmmaker on stage*. There are groans from sections of the crowd. 'They're horror films!' another fan retorts, intimating that such films are what they are, and should remain splendidly so.
In truth, the appropriate response to a George Romero film lies somewhere between. His most famous works, the zombie movies that comprise his Dead cycle (from 1968's Night of the Living Dead onwards) have certainly invited their fair share of over-interpretation. But by Romero's own admission, he's never just chasing scares.
For Romero, the concept always comes first — whether it's a treatise on humans' unwillingness to get along, even when lives depend on it, a satirical comment on the rise of consumerism, or an examination of how humanity can become lost amid a clash of ideologies.
The zombies are added later. In that respect, they are incidental. Romero is more interested in human behaviour. The zombies could be replaced by any large-scale natural or man-made disaster that would force human beings out of their usual patterns of existence and subject them to the ultimate test of character.
Romero's latest, high-concept gore-fest, Diary of the Dead, tackles the subject of new media, and the ways in which the dominance of the 'blogosphere' has determined how news is disseminated, accessed and interpreted.
Romero fears that the rise of online video sharing and online soapboxing has, rather than democratising the news, led to increased tribalism that is divisive rather than unifying, as people will automatically go to sources with whom they are predisposed to agree. It's a world he believes is dominated by opinion, rather than fact.
But he doesn't damn new media from on high — a benevolent god prodding his people back towards the true path. Nor does he assume the role of bitter grandfather pining for the good old days before technology overtook our lives.
Diary inhabits the new media world, visually and thematically. It speaks the language of that world. It articulates Romero's fears, but also celebrates the benefits when control of the news is taken back from politicised or self-serving media corporations by 'the people'.
The plot is shoestring: a group of university film students flee across the country in search of loved ones and safety following a