Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I will confess I haven't seen The Zombie Diaries 1. But I don't think that affects my position here too much, since my dislike of the sequel is largely based on the awful hand-held camerawork (with additional demerits for the wildly inaccurate DVD sleeve, right). Supposedly, this is the work of an Army photographer, but the conceit of holding on to your camera in the middle of a zombie apocalypse is already sketchy at best, and is pushed beyond the ludicrous here. Not only does the camera apparently come with the Battery of Infinite Power, at one point they're captured by a gang of roaming bandits - who seamlessly take over cinematographic duties for the duration. Even given my dislike of the style in general, as rarely justifiable and even less rarely done well (which goes back to Blair Witch), this is ineffective and irritating. Immediately you realize, yes, they are going to do the entire movie like this, it becomes a chore far more than any fragment of a pleasure.
The plot sees a group of army reservists trying to make their way to the coast in East Anglia, where the last boats are supposedly about to leave, for safety on the continent. They're led by Maddox (Brodie), who is the lynch-pin of the film, and does a decent enough job - certainly, compared to the rest of the cast who are unlikeable and/or mediocre actors. Admittedly, in the case of the bandit posse led by Goke (Jones), the former is kinda the aim, though the scene where some of his gang rape a female zombie gets that point over, then sticks around for no further point. It's not the only rape in the film either (though in this regard, it's a hell of a lot better than The Hospital, which we actively turned off half-way through). The main problem is, there's nothing of note to sustain interest, in content or execution, and with so few zombies, the army could simply - oh, dunno, go around them. Whether you're looking for action, drama or even simply zombies, you'd be better off watching two randomly-selected episodes of The Walking Dead.
D
[April 2014]
