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I just tried to watch Romero's Diary of the Dead. I hadn't seen it yet. I made it about 40 minutes in. I just couldn't take it. Bad performances, and a lot of the lacking performances had to do with Romero himself. Poorly executed for a found footage movie, everything felt planned and staged, and there was none of the spontaneous feeling that the better found footage movies have. That dialogue would have been impossible to pull off with any naturalism, so it's hard to pin the blame on the actors. Found footage works best with a lot of improvisation, and none of that occurred here. If you want to state some message about human nature, it helps if your characters make somewhat realistic decisions. Otherwise no one is going to be able to relate to the characters, and your message will ring hollow. The social commentary felt so forced, because the character's actions were implausible. The characters continually had to tell the audience what to take from the movie with a leaden voice-over and heavy-handed speeches. Romero totally miscalculated the approach in his approach to found footage movies.
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