The offical poster from landmark horror director George Romero’s latest contribution to undead cinema, Diary of the Dead, has stumbled onto the Web. Diary is set for a theatrical release on February 15th, which makes me curious to see how it will perform in light of the similarly themed and wildly successful Cloverfield. Romero’s fifth zombie film will flip the script and focus on the moment zombies started to rise up and create chaos amongst the human populace. It’s similar to Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project in that the film is presented from the POV of a camera belonging to a pack of college kids who are making their own horror film before the hell on Earth stuff happens.
Got that? This method allows Romero to comment on how media-obsessed and out-of-touch the young adults of today are, and how they all deserved to get eaten by decaying Baby Boomers! There’s also an anti-war message.
As for the poster, it could be cleverer. And I’m not sure exactly where the camera is focusing, because it’s adding zombies that aren’t there. Make the jump to see what I’m typing about.
Perplexing, innit?
Source Link: Bloody Disgusting
January 20th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Maybe the camera is used to see invisible zombies? Maybe that’s the whole marketing gimmick right there?
January 20th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
@ Elver
That would be one very subtle marketing approach to invisible zombies, especially for Dimension/Weinstein Co.
But if so, what must one do in a past life to come back as a zombie ghost?
January 20th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Remember that Buffy episode where a nerdy girl with no friends turned invisible, because she had no friends and nobody noticed her? Maybe it’s a remake of that. But with zombies.
January 20th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
The camera shot is all good. Its just on a 4X zoom as you can see on the bottom-center of the screen. So the hand that you see in the screen is of the zombie right above the ()REC icon. The female zombie is to his right and the zombie to the furthes right is again there in both screen and street. As for the other zombies on the screen I guess they didnt want to put a lot of them on the street cause they wouldnt be able to draw them properly cause they are so far back it wouldnt look good with fewer details. Thats why you see them on the 4X zoom. ;) Thats my 2 cents.
The real question is how is that damn screen working when its cracked like that. :D
January 20th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
As the poster pictures, i hope the movie have daylight scenes, just like Dawn of the dead, that makes it creepier imo.
January 20th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
@xb00t
I know where the female zombie is, but that doesn’t explain the lean of the zombie to the left of her, nor does it explain the…i count six zombies…shown behind her in the camera’s eye that are simply not there in the field. Also, this camera seemingly picks up on zombie ghosts but not explosions. What a crazy camera.
January 20th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I think you all are thinking about the poster way to much.
The camera shot looks like the beging of land of the dead
January 21st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I think people have to realize the (hopefully obvious) fact that the poster is just trying to be clever. It’s meant to make it clear that this film will involve the video recorder/camcorder approach. Having the zombies “up close and personal” in the viewer window just adds to the effect. I personally think this is one of the more effective zombie posters that I’ve seen, particularly when compared to those used in the previous Romero films.
January 21st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
@tatiana
There’s no reason why the poster cannot be both clever and accurate. It’s not a major deal, but this is a film from a major studio made by a world renown horror director, not a direct-to-DVD hackjob. The marketing department that created the poster obviously did a quick, botched job, no reason why we shouldn’t call them out on it. Why not just add more zombies to the field to match the camera? It’s a careless mistake.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Yeah, but Hunter: who cares?!
You’re right: you can call them on it.
But … you know … who cares? See, it’s a movie about dead people COMING BACK TO LIFE! If you’re willing to entertain that premise in and of itself, I really don’t think it takes too much to allow a poster to show a few inaccurate aspects.
But, if it makes you feel better, carry on…