DVD review: World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries (2011)

Three months after a catastrophic viral outbreak that wiped out 99.9% of the world´s human population and resurrected them as flesh-eating living dead, a small unit of soldiers and civilians are forced to defend themeselves against the breed of blood-thirsty predators. Taking refuge from the rampaging mutant hordes outside, the survivors soon find their compound besieged and with no choice but to fight for their lives in a hellish, death-ravaged landscape. However, hope appears when a high level communication is received from a military base on the coast, with the news of a sanctuary. Now, their only chance for survival is to make the horrifying journey trhough the realm of the ravenous living dead and the remaining gangs of bandits who are as savage and deadly as the mutants out for their flesh. World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries is written by Kevin Gates who also directs toghether with Michael Bartlett. Three characters from the first film do appear in this film. It´s obvious that they had a bigger budget behind them this time in this production and that really helped the movie along a good deal. The acting is pretty decent. We get choppy editing combined with frenetic camera-work, note that there is a lot of shaky camera work (hand held camera route, where one character walks along it's participants & films all the going on's as they occur. ) and about half the movie is shot in nightvision which has a luminous green negative effect which becomes irritating and difficult to watch.  Regarding special fx, the film isn't very gory and the zombies aren´t best looking or the most impressive I´ve seen but they are ok.
The zombies are of the George Romero variety of slow moving, brainless, shuffling, eating machines that are rotting on their feet. The sound of flies accompanies them giving the dead a more pungent quality and the film is filled with nice little touches like this that show some real attention to detail. The pacing is a bit slow but I like the the gritty and bleak atmosphere, there are some unpleasant moments and there are some really good set-pieces that are creepy especially in the nighttime graveyard scene with the snow falling.
This is review is based on the region 2 DVD released in the UK by Metrodome Group.
Rating: 3 out of 7.  Check it out if you are a zombie aficionado or a post-apocalypse film fan.
/JL