In the four decades since he first started dealing with the living dead, director George A. Romero has crafted a legacy of unbelievably gross money shots mixed with sharper-than-you’d-think social commentary. While never exactly subtle about his subtext, Romero’s bleakly hilarious storytelling puts most other horror allegories to shame: Come for the skin-eating, stay for the ultra-black satire of where we are now.

Diary of the Dead, the filmmaker’s faux-camcorder revamp of the mythos for the YouTube generation, might be his jumpiest film yet, as a group of student filmmakers stumble haplessly into a zombie apocalypse. In most other respects, though, this is a bit of a bummer, drowning its predecessors’ virtues in what feels like an endless Mad Lib of Wired magazine buzzwords. Romero is on to something significant here—the way that today’s generation is unable to grasp horror unless it’s seen through electronic gizmos—but his delivery comes off as musty and shrill. On the other hand, people unwilling or unable to suspend their disbelief during Blair Witch and Cloverfield should be overjoyed to know that batteries get swapped out here on a regular basis.

Romero is ultimately too talented at what he does to deliver a total dud, which accounts for such undeniable bright spots as a few brief glimpses of zombies in unusual outfits (Party Clown!), or a scene-stealing Amish guy who would count as an instant cultural icon to his people if, well, his people could see the movie. Unfortunately, whatever else he has to say this time out is swamped by an atypical—and hopefully temporary—heavy-handedness. If America’s defining doomcryer is right that today’s audiences need this much spoon-feeding, then his latest and least film is scarier than it seems. Boo.

DIARY OF THE DEAD DIR. GEORGE A. ROMERO | RATED R | OPENS FRI

Tags: diary of the dead, Film, george a. romero, zombies