The Ruins (2008)

The Ruins

The Good:
The concept was semi-original I guess.
It surprised me once.
It was...
The subtle special effects were alright.
I like the poster a lot.

The Bad:
Really there is so much to go into here: the problems with the believability of the plot and the concept, the acting, the lack of explanation, the length, the dialog, the movie.

Overall: I am sure that in novel form this idea would have come across much better. Don't waste your time on this one.

Cloverfield (2008)

Cloverfield

The Good:
Excellent concept that was executed extremely well.
The fast-paced movement of the movie was believable and tense.
Borrowed a lot of basic concepts from earlier Romero films, Godzilla movies and from The Blair Witch Project and combined them together amazingly.
The characters seemed real.
Neat editing.
Great special effects.
Expert storytelling.

The Bad:
Some of the wounds in the film would have been a lot more grievous than were played out.
I didn't see it in the theater.

Overall: Wow. Great flick! It is what Diary of the Dead wished it was. A must-see movie! I will say no more. Watch it (on the big screen if you get a chance)!

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Diary of the Dead

The Good:
Gotta enjoy a Romero zombie movie no matter what! :-)
I like that Romero went back to focusing on the people, because though I found the zombie evolution in Land of the Dead interesting, Romero's strength is the character interaction.
It seemed to take a lot from The Walking Dead, which of course had in turn taken a lot from Romero.
Samuel the Amish guy was awesome!

***The myspace.com shorts are a must watch on the DVD!!!***

The Bad:
I wasn't feeling the motivations of the characters so much in this one.
The social commentary in it was a lot more heavy-handed than usual, that detracted from the film in my opinion. It was like a social commentary with a story based around it rather than social commentary contained within a story.
The special effects were not so good.
The narration was a major distraction.
I didn't buy it as a student filmed documentary at all.

Overall: Is it better than the continuing Return of the Living dead franchise? Yes. Is it up to Night/Dawn/Day standards? Nowhere close. Worth watching? Yeah, I guess. But for the same basic concept, Cloverfield is much better.