Zombie Diaries.

It seems like documentary style is all the rage in recent years.  While this “cheap” and “lo-fi” feel can produce genuinely scary stuff, most of the time, it just ends up looking cheap and lo-fi.  It can be cheap to make movies in this fashion, which might be why they have become fashionable.  Excited to see which side of the fence late two thousandies’ “Zombie Diaries” ends up on, Starkwell and Lovelock sit prepared, waiting, watching, judging.   Often farting.

[...]

[HASMAT suits collect sample from dead zombie.]

Starkwell: When that HASMAT guy reached his arm over you could see his exposed wrist.  Why wouldn’t the director try just a little harder for realism?

Lovelock: Scientists can make mistakes.

Starkwell: Right... but directors shouldn't make ones THIS big and obvious.  Just duct tape the gardening gloves to the suit.  Fuck, they probably did twenty takes and that was the best one they had.

Lovelock: I thought it was convincing.

Starkwell: That’s because you’re an idiot.

[...]

Starkwell: Bad British acting somehow always seems better than bad American acting.

Lovelock: I think it’s the accent.

[...]

The story progressed, the characters seemed likeable enough.  Starkwell and Lovelock sat quietly, waiting for something to happen.  The “cameraman” in the movie says he is constantly filming because he wants to document everything.  Starkwell wonders why that means they have to show it all to us... Lovelock says he wishes that CAMERAMAN would “discriminate a little more.  Who gives a shit about a bunch of arguing British reporters?”

[...]

[Lights go out in farm house, flashlight camera finds the first zombies.]

Lovelock: [… nervous fart… ]

Starkwell: HASMAT Suit continuity error from the beginning is still leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

Lovelock: Are we watching the same thing?

[Random cut to DIARY TWO which is one month later.]

Lovelock: Awww… just when it was getting good.

Starkwell: What the what?  So it wasn’t enough to make a documentary style zombie film?  That had to make weird scattered and disjointed timeline and chronology too?  Will we ever find out what happened?  Do we care?

Lovelock: It’s overcomplicating messes like this that lead to such scenes as "HASMAT guy with an exposed wrist".

[...]

[There’s an American guy now.]

Starkwell: See what I mean?  The American seems like a much worse actor than the others.  But in reality, they are probably ALL terrible.

Lovelock: Totally.  I think I’d get away with a lot more if I sounded British.

[...]

This “part 2” starts just as slowly as part one did, with the exception of one decent looking zombie getting his head blown off.  If we’ve learned anything from “part 1” it’s that it will randomly change to a “part 3” as soon as we start seeing some action.

[...]

[That’s exactly what happened.]

Starkwell: COME ON!  Shifting around the order of your movie into weird segments doesn’t automatically make it interesting, you assholes.

Lovelock: I’m more concerned with how boring it is, regardless of order.

[Director makes a Twin Towers reference.]

Starkwell: Dude, weak.

Lovelock: I’m still more concerned with how boring this all is.

[...]

Starkwell: Someone should tell these guys that ‘documentary style’ doesn’t mean it has to be out of focus and motion sickness-y.

Lovelock: Were they shooting at zombies?  I’m not even sure what just happened.

Starkwell: They should have ended this movie after “part 1”.

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock were quiet then for a while, visibly annoyed at the movie, the characters and the dialogue.  Lovelock can be pretty easy to win over, but this movie is not giving him the good stuff.  Randomly it cut back to the characters from “part 2” and Starkwell just made a weird sound.  It sounded like a laugh, mixed with a painful cry of some kind.

[...]

Starkwell: Well at least they ate the shitty American.

[...]

This is the type of film that has some legitimately creepy and effective shots of horror, but they are surrounded by many legitimately boring and ineffective shots of bad acting.  The fact that some of it works just makes the rest seem more annoying, and the movie becomes a frustrating mess.

[...]

Starkwell: If you give someone a candy, but hand it to them in a bucket of shit, who’s really going to be able to come out excited about the candy?

Lovelock: What does that have to do with the movie?

Starkwell: Everything.  Everything, man.

[...]

[Now it keeps jumping from “part” to “part”.  Each time this happens, it makes Lovelock more confused and Starkwell more mad.  Dear director, you’re losing ‘em.]

Starkwell: The director lost me at “HASMAT suit guy shows bare wrist”.

Lovelock: He lost me at “CONFUSING MESS”.  “Zombie Diaries”?  More like “Zombie Diarrheas”.

Starkwell: I think it’s just diarrhea.

Lovelock: But what if there’s more than one diarrhea?

Starkwell: It’s like mud.  You throw mud on top of mud, you don’t get ‘muds’, you just get more mud.

Lovelock: This movie is muds.

[...]

[Basically you find out one of the dudes named ‘Goke’ is like an evil rapist murderer monster man.]

Lovelock: So in the end, the real enemy is ‘man’?  The real enemy is ‘Goke’?

Starkwell: The real enemy is the people that made this movie.

Lovelock: Maybe the real enemy is the person that asked us to watch this.

[...]

Shit, the troops are turning on me.  At least there is only fifteen minutes left which probably isn’t enough time for them to plan their coup.

[...]

[Back to one month earlier, the tail end of "part 1".]

Starkwell: [sarcastically] No, don’t trust the Goke guy, no don’t… [not sarcastically] WHO CARES?  FUCKING END ALREADY.

Lovelock: See they DID tie it all together.  It just happens to be tied together with a ribbon of diarrhea.

Starkwell: You’re really stuck on that word today…  Also, it’s not really all tied together.  This movie has more holes than-

Lovelock: A net full of diarrhea?

Starkwell: Dude, enough.

[...]

Well the movie ends, and it’s all depressing and shit.  Plus they spend way too much time focusing on the two dudes that love to torture and rape and what have you… Starkwell and Lovelock seem depressed too.  There’s a sequel that came out last year.  I think I’ll have to get them drunk if I ever want them to watch it.  Also, the cover of this fucking DVD is not even remotely close to what this movie ends up being.