History Film / DiaryOfTheDead

* AgentScully: Tony is the only one to really dismiss the idea of zombies when they hear it on the news, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accuses Mary of running over living people]] when she's already feeling pretty conflicted, and even after realizing there are zombies spends a long time confident in the governments ability to restore things.
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: While he averts it later, Jason does hurry to get Debra from the dorms as soon as they find out something is wrong.
* AmbiguousSituation: The survivors don't know if Law Enforcement is lying to the public about the dead, or if TheGovernment is lying to Law Enforcement about the dead.
** Whether or not Jason [[DrivenToSuicide wanted to die]] by not wanting to go into the panic room.

* BaitAndSwitch: The trooper who is bitten by the zombies that the old couple were hiding says not to shoot them when his comrades are getting angry. Then he clarifies [[KickTheDog to not shoot them in the head, so they wake up dead]] and [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled caps his own top]] after giving the instruction.

* BreakTheCutie: Tracy and Gordo are both fairly sunny, helpful characters early on but end up with a lot to leave them scared or sad throughout the story, with Gordo suffering form having to shoot people, and Tracy being especially affected by [[spoiler: Gordo's death]].

* BaldOfAwesome: Samuel is one of the toughest survivors (although his baldness is hard to tell given the hat he usually wears).

* TakeThat: Jason's criticism that dead things are slow doubles as a jab against ZombieApocalypse movies that have [[OurZombiesAreDifferent fast zombies]].

* WackyWaysideTribe: As noted above, A common criticism lobbied against the movie is that most of these "tribes" are more interesting than the main characters. The Guardsmen deserters become the protagonists of Romero's later movie ''Film/SurvivalOfTheDead''.

* TakeThat: Jason's criticism that dead things are slow.

* ArtisticLicenseStatistics: A radio broadcast says that the number of deaths caused by the zombies will quadruple. It then says that it will increase by 100%, even though quadrupling is to increase by 400%.

The movie opens on a [[ActionPrologue news report]], being narrated by the FinalGirl, explaining the reasoning behind the movie itself. The main story line starts of with a group of film students, along with their sardonic boozing professor Andrew Maxwell (Scott Wentworth), making a classic cliched horror movie. When the group hears escalating radio reports of people coming back from the dead, the shoot falls apart, with monster-player Ridley (Philip Riccio) departing in his sport cars as the rest of the group leaves in a Winnebago.

The cameraman/director, Jason (Joshua Close), decides to return to their university to pick up his girlfriend, Debra (Michelle Morgan), but the [[TheJaywalkingDead Winnebago plows through a group of zombies on the road]] along the way; still skeptical that they are in fact the walking dead, the grief-stricken driver, Mary (Creator/TatianaMaslany), shoots herself. The others take her to a hospital, which turns out to be abandoned -- at least by the living. The remaining survivors are quickly forced into the realization that the ZombieApocalypse is indeed upon them.

Heading for Debra's home, they have encounters with the zombie-movie equivalent of [[WackyWaysideTribe Wacky Wayside Tribes]]: a badass mute Amish farmer (RD Reid), a group of black people who have set up a survivalist-type fort, and (briefly) a gang of [[Film/SurvivalOfTheDead National Guard deserters]]. When they finally reach their destination, they find that Debra's family are all either dead or zombified, so they decide to go to the mansion owned by Ridley's family.

The group finds Ridley alive, but come to the painfully belated realization that the rest of his family is dead or walking dead, and he has been bitten. Still wearing his mummy movie-costume, he ends up reenacting the opening horror movie scene; Tracy (Amy Lalonde), the "victim" in the horror movie, becomes disgusted and drives off in the Winnebago. Ridley kills two of the group, including Jason, and the movie ends with Debra, the professor and Tony watching from a "panic room" as a growing horde of zombies slowly breaks into the estate.

* ZombieAdvocate: One of the Troopers in a video they watch at the warehouse was bitten du to an old couple keeping their zombified relatives locked up and hidden from them when they reached the house.

* ZommbieAdvocate: One of the Troopers in a video they watch at the warehouse was bitten du to an old couple keeping their zombified relatives locked up and hidden from them when they reached the house.

The movie opens on a [[ActionPrologue news report]], being narrated by the FinalGirl, explaining the reasoning behind the movie itself. The main story line starts of with a group of film students, along with their sardonic boozing professor, making a classic cliched horror movie. When the group hears escalating radio reports of people coming back from the dead, the shoot falls apart, with monster-player Ridley departing in his sport cars as the rest of the group leaves in a Winnebago.

The cameraman/director, Jason, decides to return to their university to pick up his girlfriend, Debra, but the [[TheJaywalkingDead Winnebago plows through a group of zombies on the road]] along the way; still skeptical that they are in fact the walking dead, the grief-stricken driver, Mary, shoots herself. The others take her to a hospital, which turns out to be abandoned -- at least by the living. The remaining survivors are quickly forced into the realization that the ZombieApocalypse is indeed upon them.

Heading for Debra's home, they have encounters with the zombie-movie equivalent of [[WackyWaysideTribe Wacky Wayside Tribes]]: a badass mute Amish farmer, a group of black people who have set up a survivalist-type fort, and (briefly) a gang of [[Film/SurvivalOfTheDead National Guard deserters]]. When they finally reach their destination, they find that Debra's family are all either dead or zombified, so they decide to go to the mansion owned by Ridley's family.

The group finds Ridley alive, but come to the painfully belated realization that the rest of his family is dead or walking dead, and he has been bitten. Still wearing his mummy movie-costume, he ends up reenacting the opening horror movie scene; Tracy, the "victim" in the horror movie, becomes disgusted and drives off in the Winnebago. Ridley kills two of the group, including Jason, and the movie ends with Debra, the professor and Tony watching from a "panic room" as a growing horde of zombies slowly breaks into the estate.

* AHouseDivided: The group doesn't really like each other ''before'' zombies come into equation. Over the course of the film, they keep dividing into smaller and smaller groups of interests, which has predictable consequences.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[Film/SurvivalOfTheDead "Nicotine" Crockett and his fellow National Guardsman deserters]], who are more of {{Villain Protagonist}}s since they rob the heroes of this picture. Other characters such as Samuel, the troopers, a Japanese woman seen hiding and trying to give advice on a youtube video, Brody the cameraman and the stranger also apply.

* MixedArchetypes

Heading for Debra's home, they have encounters with the zombie-movie equivalent of [[WackyWaysideTribe Wacky Wayside Tribes]]: a badass mute Amish farmer, a group of black people who have set up a survivalist-type fort, and (briefly) a gang of [[Film/SurvivalOfTheDead National Guard deserters]]. When they finally reach their destination, they find that Debra's family are all either dead or zombiefied, so they decide to go to the mansion owned by Ridley's family.

* BigDamnHeroes: Samuel stabbing a zombie who was trying to drag Tracy out from under the van, and Maxwell putting and arrow through [[spoiler: Billy's]] head as he's attacking Debra.

* DoesntLikeGuns: After giving one of their colleagues who's turning into a zombie the coup-de-grace, professor Maxwell hands the pistol over to someone else, saying it's too easy to use. Later however he picks up a bow saying that it "feels friendlier". We later discover that he's a former member of the archery team at Eton.

* EveryoneHasStandards: Lampshaded after the National Guardsmen rob them from ''most'' (but not all) of their food, but otherwise leave them be. Maxwell muses that they are thieves, not murderers, and they wouldn't have gone as far as to leave people unarmed with the dead wandering around.

* FinalGirl: [[spoiler: Not played entirely straight. Debra is the narrator and protagonist (and survives) but while she isn't TheLoad she doesn't actually contribute much to killing zombies or keeping the group safe. Even her quick thinking use of a defibrillator doesn't truly finish off a zombie. And aside that, [[ActionGirl Tracy]] is still alive and well, just stormed out as far as possible for group that continously endangers her life]].
* GirlishPigtails: Francine's hairstyle.
* GoodSamaritan:

* HiddenDepths: Samuel is able to help fix their veihcle despite his Amish lifestyle.

* MonsterClown: The recording they found of a zombiefied clown biting someone at a child's birthday party. Crossed with IncongruouslyDressedZombie.

* SouthernBelle: Tracy is a subversion, being somewhat tomboish in her behaviour, but due to her costume and looks, everyone assumes she must be the case.

* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler: The Amish farmer's solution to having a zombie bite him on the neck from behind, is to swing his scythe upwards, straight through his own head and that of the attacking zombie]].

* TokenMinority: Inverted with the group in the warehouse of food, who are all black save for one white guy.
* TooDumbToLive: Played with. Jason is too busy filming to get involved most of the time, but almost everybody else is pretty useful in fighting the zombies. But as he points out to Debra at one point, his documentary being uploaded to the internet is showing pretty much anyone around the world who watches it exactly what they need to do to survive themselves. Debra's voice-over mentions that she agrees with this point in hindsight.

* UselessProtagonist: Jason is the cameraman. And as the plot unfolds, he becames unstable and obsessive about continuing to film everything, which starts to be more and more dangerous for people around him, as he just stands and films.
* WackyWaysideTribe: As noted above. A common complaint about this movie is that most of these "tribes" are more interesting than the main characters. The Guardsmen deserters become the protagonists of Romero's later movie ''Film/SurvivalOfTheDead''.

* ZombieInfectee: Averted for the most part. There is a few exceptions, but the characters honestly didn't know any better.
** When Gordo is bitten and dies, Tracy insists that he might not come back like the others (even though, yes, he will). So they go by her wishes and wait to see if he will or won't (which he will). When he does, they position her several feet away with a gun for when he inevitably does.

* BadassBystander[=/=]HeroicBystander: In the opening scene, a female paramedic karate-kicks a zombie in the head.
* BadassGrandpa: [[TheProfessor Maxwell]] starts off looking like an alcoholic JadedWashout, while looking pretty feeble. He turns out to be a war veteran and a [[TheStraightAndArrowPath crack archer]]. Also Samuel, the mute Amish toting sticks of dynamite. And a [[SinisterScythe scythe]].

* TheRemnant: Averted with the two pairs of deserters, who seem to have firmly rejected any notion of maintaining order (although the warehouse group does invite in refugees). Played straight with a group of people who downloaded a video who are wearing hazmat suits and gas masks and are credited as Troopers, who uploaded a video of going from house to house, killing zombies and evacuating refugees, with one of them angrily killing a pair of people who'd been hiding zombies ([[TakingYouWithMe one of which bit him]]) with some egging on from one of his companions as the other two stare indecisively.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler: Elliot]] makes it pretty far into the movie but then gets ambushed and unceremoniously bitten while coming out of the shower.

** The Stranger and the others at the warehouse are letters, but they do provide shelter and supplies to Deb and the others without asking anything in return.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[Film/SurvivalOfTheDead "Nicotine" Crockett and his fellow National Guardsman deserters]], who are more of {{Villain Protagonist}}s since they rob the heroes of this picture.

* InformedAbility: A somewhat justified example. The ConfessionCam featurette has Tracy claim to be a champion set shooter and an avid horseback rider, but no horses appear in the movie, and she doesn't use a gun (although they mainly have pistols, not shotguns).

* TheRemnant: Averted with the two pairs of deserters, who seem to have firmly rejected any notion of fainting order (although the warehouse group does invite in refugees). Played straight with a group of people who downloaded a video who are wearing hazmat suits and gas masks and are credited as Troopers, who uploaded a video of going from house to house, killing zombies and evacuating refugees, with one of them angrily killing a pair of people who'd been hiding zombies ([[TakingYouWithMe one of which bit him]]) with some egging on from one of his companions as the other two stare indecisively.

* TheseHandsHaveKilled: Gordo has this reaction after a bit (causing Maxwell to gently take the gun from him), as does Elliot, according to a ConfessionCam bonus feature.

* WeNeedADistraction: As useless as Jason is to Tracy when she's being attacked, he does yell out to Ridley to try and distract him.

* ZombieApocalypse

** When Gordo is bitten and dies, Amy insists that he might not come back like the others (even though, yes, he will). So they go by her wishes and wait to see if he will or won't (which he will). When he does, they position her several feet away with a gun for when he inevitably does.

* BaitAndSwitch: The trooper who is bitten by the zombies that the old couple were hiding says not to shoot them when his comrades are getting angry, then clarifies [[KickTheDog to shoot them in the head so they wake up dead]] and does it himself before [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled committing suicide].

* BigSisterInstinct: Deb is highly concerned about her little brother for most of the movie, [[spoiler: and doesn't take it well when they find him dead]].

* EveryoneHasStandards: Lampshaded after the National Guardsmen rob them, with Maxwell stating that their thieves, not murderers, and they wouldn't have gone as far as to leave people unarmed with the dead wandering around

* GoodSamaritan: The Stranger and the others at the warehouse are letters, but they do provide shelter and supplies to Deb and the others without asking anything in return.

* InformedAbility: A somewhat justified example. The ConfessionCam featurette has Tracy claim to be a champion set shooter and an avid horseback writer, but no horses appear in the movie, and she doesn't use a gun (although they mainly have pistols, not shotguns).

* JustifiedCriminal: Colonel Crocker and his National Guardsmen seem to think that Deb and the others are looters when their robbing them, and view it as just taking what was taken from someone else.
* TheKnightsWhoSaySquee: Maxwell's reaction to seeing Ridley's families collection of first addition novels, actually hugging a copy of ''Literature/ATaleOfTwoCities'' to his chest.

* TheRemnant: Averted with the two pairs of deserters, who seem to have firmly rejected any notion of fainting order (although the warehouse group does invite in refugees). Played straight with a group of people who downloaded a video who are wearing hazmat suits and glass masks and are credited as Troopers, who uploaded a video of going from house to house, killing zombies and evacuating refugees, with one of them angrily killing a pair of people who'd been hiding zombies ([[TakingYouWithMe one of which bit him]]) with some egging on from one of his companions as the other two stare indecisively.

* TheseHandsHaveKilled: Gordo has this reaction after a bit (causing Maxwell to gently take the gun for him), as does Elliot, according to a ConfessionCam bonus feature.

* DeadLineNews: The film opens with a TV news crew covering a murder-suicide in an apartment complex. During filming the corpses reanimate, then begin attacking the [=EMTs=] moving them out of the building; one of them then turns on the TV reporter and cameraman.

* RaisedCatholic: Mary keeps a St. Christopher medal in her possession.

* SanitySlippage: Ridley, which might or might not be related with [[spoiler: being bitten]]. Jason's SkewedPriorities about continously filming everything eventually turn into this, with clear obsessive behaviour and disregard for danger - his or anyone in the group.

** Upon finding out the first news about ZombieApocalypse, Ridley runs to his sport car and peels off before the rest of the group can even fully react, leaving them in overcrowded Winnebago.

** Being fed-up with her idiotic group, Tracy eventually {{RageQuit}}s them. Considering Jason was busy [[spoiler: filming zombie!Ridley trying to rip her to shreds, rather than help]], it's hard to blame her.

* TheCameo: Creator/StephenKing, Creator/WesCraven, Creator/SimonPegg, Creator/QuentinTarantino and Guillermo Del Toro all voice radio announcers, and Romero himself has a small role as police captain.

* BrokenHeel: First it's played for laughs when the students are making a HorrorComedy project. Second happens for real when the exact same girl is chased by a zombie, this time for real, and ''[[LampshadedHanging she angrily quips about it]]''.

* AbandonedHospital: The first place our main cast goes to after Mary attempts suicide over believing she ran over people and not zombies.
* ActionGirl / BadassBystander / HeroicBystander: In the opening scene, a female paramedic karate-kicks a zombie in the head.
* AHouseDivided
* ApocalypticLog: The movie is the log.
* ArtisticLicenseStatistics: A radio broadcast says that the number of deaths caused by the zombies will quadruple. It then says that it will increase by 100%, even though quadrupling is to increase by 300%.

* BadassGrandpa: TheProfessor starts off drunk and looking pretty feeble. He turns out to be a war veteran and a [[TheStraightAndArrowPath crack archer]]. Also Samuel, the mute Amish toting sticks of dynamite. And a [[SinisterScythe scythe]].

* BoomHeadshot

* BroadStrokes: Arguably an AlternateContinuity, this film rolls the clock back to the original zombie outbreak, but is set in modern times instead of the late 60s. This applies to all of Romero's ''Dead'' previous dead movies of course, being part of the same continuity but each filmed in a different decade.
* BrokenHeel: Lampshaded twice in the movie.

* CameraAbuse
* ClothingDamage: Lampshaded.
* DangerousDeserter: Zigzagged, they encounter two groups of deserters but the first, in a warehouse with food, gives them guns and other supplies, while the second does rob them, but leaves them alive, and with some of their supplies.
* DeadLineNews: The film opens with a TV news crew covering a murder-suicide in an apartment complex. During filming the corpses reanimate, then begin attacking the [=EMT=]s moving them out of the building; one of them then turns on the TV reporter and cameraman.

* DistressedDamsel: First played straight then subverted.

* DoesntLikeGuns: After giving one of their colleagues who's turning into a zombie the coup-de-grace, TheProfessor hands the pistol over to someone else, saying it's too easy to use. Later however he picks up a bow saying that it "feels friendlier" (we later discover that he's a former member of the archery team at Eton).
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Poor Mary]]; worse when you consider she ''didn't even do it right'' and instead of dying a quick, painless death, she has to suffer through a gaping head wound until she finally dies.
* EyeScream
* FinalGirl: [[spoiler: Not played entirely straight. Debra is the narrator and protagonist (and survives) but while she isn't TheMillstone she doesn't actually contribute much to killing zombies or keeping the group safe (even her quick thinking use of a defibrillator doesn't truly finish off a zombie).]]
* HandicappedBadass: The Amish farmer Samuel kills himself some zombies and offs himself and the zombie who bit him by shoving a scythe through his and the zombie's head.

* ImprobableAimingSkills: All the characters are able to pull off headshots as the plot demands.
* TheJaywalkingDead: Subverted. The first encounter with the undead involves their Winnebago driving over several zombies walking on the road. Thinking she's committed vehicular manslaughter, the driver shoots herself in remorse.

* LonelyRichKid
* MirrorScare

* PhonyNewscast

* RoomFullOfZombies: The pool house has zombies at the bottom of the pool. They're corpses at first... but then they reanimate.
* SanitySlippage: Ridley. Possibly Jason.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Pretty much Tracy's attitude at the end of the film.

* ShowWithinAShow: "The Death of Death"
* SouthernBelle: Tracy has some of this, and mentions that her father was in NASCAR.

* TakingYouWithMe: The Amish farmer's solution to having a zombie bite him on the neck from behind, is to swing his scythe upwards, straight through his own head and that of the attacking zombie.

* TheUndead
* UselessProtagonist
* WackyWaysideTribe: As noted above. A common complaint about this movie is that most of these "tribes" are more interesting than the main characters. The Guard deserters become the protagonists of Romero's later movie ''Film/SurvivalOfTheDead''.

* GenreSavvy: With horror movies, but clearly not with zombie movies.

** When Gordo is bitten and dies, Amy insists that he might not come back like the others (even though, yes, he will). So they go by her wishes and wait to see if he will or won't (which he will). When he does, they're GenreSavvy enough to position her several feet away with a gun for when he inevitably does.

Heading for Debra's home, they have encounters with the zombie-movie equivalent of [[WackyWaysideTribe Wacky Wayside Tribes]]: a badass mute Amish farmer, a group of black people who have set up a survivalist-type fort, and (briefly) a gang of [[Film/SurvivalOfTheDead National Guard deserters]]. When they finally reach their destination, they find that [[spoiler:Debra's family are all either dead or zombiefied]], so they decide to go to the mansion owned by Ridley's family.

The group finds Ridley alive, but come to the painfully belated realization that [[spoiler:the rest of his family is dead or walking dead, and he has been bitten]]. Still wearing his mummy movie-costume, he ends up reenacting the opening horror movie scene; Tracy, the "victim" in the horror movie, becomes disgusted and drives off in the Winnebago. [[spoiler:Ridley]] kills two of the group, including [[spoiler:Jason]], and the movie ends with [[spoiler:Debra, the professor and Tony]] watching from a "panic room" as a growing horde of zombies slowly breaks into the estate.

''Diary of the Dead'' (2007), the fifth movie in the ''Film/LivingDeadSeries'' written and directed by George A. Romero, marked his return to making independent films after ''Film/LandOfTheDead''. The movie is followed by ''Film/SurvivalOfTheDead''.