George A. Romero's Handheld Horror

Diary of the Dead is a Return to Low-Budget Zombie Roots

Few filmmakers have changed the face of a genre as decisively as George A. Romero did with the release of Night of the Living Dead — a socially conscious, but pessimistic, horror movie that had a creative impact to match its long commercial life. Romero kept himself busy during the 1970s with well-regarded one-offs like The Crazies, Knightriders and his personal favorite, the quasi-vampire movie Martin, but he remains best known for Night and its two sequels, Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985). After a long hiatus from the zombies, Romero returned to their stories in 2005 with Land of the Dead, at a reported $15 million his most generously budgeted feature to date.

But instead of capitalizing on that move forward to bigger projects, Romero decided to return to low-budget, run-and-gun filmmaking with Diary of the Dead, a handheld yarn shot on a 20-day schedule with Panasonic HDX900 and HVX200 camcorders. "I did Land of the Dead, and I liked it well enough, but it seemed like it had lost touch with its roots," Romero told journalists at a roundtable interview session promoting the new film. "All of a sudden it was approaching Thunderdome [referring to the third, most lavish, Mad Max film] or something. And I said, 'Man, this isn't where I started.' I saw it having to get bigger, and I didn't want to do that."

This time around, Romero's commentary is aimed at the YouTube generation: it's about a bunch of college film students on the run who plan to share their verité footage of the zombie apocalypse with the world by uploading it to the Internet. "It is about people becoming reporters," Romero noted at the roundtable. "I guess there's a collective subconscious. You've got Redacted, you've got Cloverfield, you've got Vantage Point. Everybody seems to be aware of this camera that's on us. It's like, 'I am a camera.' Everybody's a camera these days."

Film & Video sat down with Romero last week to talk about his first video shoot, staying on time and budget, and the perils of the director's cut.

Access to the last 90 days of content is always free. Paid subscribers can access older stories as part of their membership.

* Already a member? Sign in.