The 77-year-old zombie king still has it! :)

I speak of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, although it's more of a very solid double than a fence-clearing home run.

Zombie movies are so timeless -- which I suppose is one of the few advantages of being undead. As social commentaries (one of my favourite aspects of Shaun of the Dead is that it was initially hard to tell the behaviour of the zombies from the living!), they can always be adapted to the circumstances of the day.

In this latest installation of the franchise, the dead start coming back to life in Pittsburgh -- which looks suspiciously like Toronto. :) Romero not only shot the film here, he is now a Toronto resident.

The mainstream media lies about it, and bloggers come to the rescue, getting word out -- until technology starts to fail. Some don't want to believe the truth, and the government proves useless in the face of disaster. Personally, I think Romero would have been well advised to work in a "Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job" reference to really drive the point home. :)

A group of film students, out shooting a mummy flick, band together amidst the rising chaos in an effort to get to their parents' homes. Actually, pretty much anyone who survives forms a tribe or gang of some type -- a phenomenon that defines human history. One of the students obsessively documents what's happening with his video camera, hence the film's name.

I suppose one can't make a zombie movie without having a few stock scenes, but Romero also had some very clever visual ideas for dispatching zombies that will have you howling! His sense of timing as a horror director remains impeccable.

A well-constructed zombie movie should provide also some intellectual intestines to chew on. One of the final lines in the film asks this, after we see scenes of some yokels killing zombies for pleasure and not survival: Are we worth saving?

While a good question, the film doesn't make the case that we're not. That weakness carries through the whole film. It's better on the visceral level rather than the intellectual one.

That said, there's one more screening on Friday. If you're a Romero fan, it's worth checking out. But I'm sure it will make it into theatres. And then you won't have to pay the TIFF walk-up rate of $22.75.