The Walking Dead Called — They Want Their Dignity Back
If World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 proves anything, it’s that you can’t spell “sequel” without “why did we bother?” This grim, joyless follow-up to 2006’s The Zombie Diaries manages to make the end of the world feel less like an apocalyptic nightmare and more like an extended team-building exercise in the world’s dullest forest.
Directed by Michael Bartlett and Kevin Gates, this British horror film promises an epic continuation of mankind’s struggle against the undead. What it delivers instead is 90 minutes of people yelling, “Get to the van!” while staggering through what looks like a damp camping trip sponsored by despair.
If George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was social commentary, and Shaun of the Dead was satire, World of the Deadis… a zombie PowerPoint presentation.
Found Footage, Lost Plot
Let’s get one thing straight: found footage can work. Done right, it’s immersive and terrifying. Done wrong, it’s a migraine with shaky cinematography. World of the Dead proudly chooses the latter.
The film starts with a birthday party during the apocalypse—a brave attempt to mix “family drama” with “flesh-eating horror.” Within minutes, the party devolves into zombies, screaming, and terrible lighting, which pretty much sets the tone for the entire movie.
We’re then reintroduced to Leeann (Alix Wilton Regan), the lone survivor from the first film, now part of a group of military survivors led by Maddox (Philip Brodie). Their mission? Survive. Their plan? Yell “Move!” a lot.
The first Zombie Diaries had a loose documentary feel that at least pretended to explore humanity under pressure. The sequel, however, seems filmed entirely by people who forgot to charge their camera batteries. It’s like watching your drunk uncle’s apocalypse vlog.
Zombies, Soldiers, and the Endless Moaning
And that’s just the acting.
The zombies, for their part, look like they wandered off the set of a student film. They’re supposed to be terrifying, but most move with the urgency of someone looking for their lost car keys. The makeup budget appears to have been three tubes of gray paint and a bottle of ketchup.
Meanwhile, the soldiers are a collection of forgettable archetypes: The Brooding Leader, The Guy With a Camera, The Female Soldier Who Deserves Better, and, of course, The One Who Panics Too Soon. Their dialogue sounds like it was written by a malfunctioning GPS: “We have to go north!” “Stay together!” “They’re everywhere!”
After a while, you begin to root for the zombies—not because they’re scary, but because they might mercifully shorten the runtime.
The Bandits: Because Zombies Weren’t Enough
Just when you think the film might settle into a predictable rhythm of “run, shoot, repeat,” it throws in a gang of human bandits led by a man named Goke (Russell Jones), who apparently escaped from a Mad Max cosplay meetup.
Goke and his crew add a human element to the horror—specifically, the human element of excessive, unpleasant violence. The film takes a detour into torture porn, with scenes of assault and cruelty that feel exploitative rather than shocking. It’s less “gritty realism” and more “Look, Mum, we’re edgy!”
There’s a particularly vile subplot involving the sexual assault of an infected woman that manages to be both gratuitous and irrelevant to the story. It’s as if the filmmakers confused “disturbing” with “unwatchable.”
By the time Leeann is captured and threatened with yet another round of violence, you’re left wondering if the real apocalypse is the film’s script.
Directionless Direction
If you squint, you can almost sense the filmmakers’ ambition: a bleak, documentary-style portrayal of humanity’s last stand. But in practice, it’s an unholy mash-up of amateur acting, disorienting editing, and handheld camerawork that could induce seasickness.
Scenes go on forever, conversations repeat endlessly, and the tension never builds—it just drags. The pacing is so lethargic that you could leave the room, make a sandwich, and come back without missing anything except perhaps another soldier whispering, “We’re not gonna make it.”
At times, the movie tries to be philosophical, as characters discuss hope, loss, and survival. Unfortunately, the dialogue is so wooden that it sounds like AI-generated soldier banter. “We have to keep fighting,” one says. “Because… that’s what we do.” Inspiring stuff, if you’re trying to win a poetry contest at a zombie boot camp.
Found Footage Fatigue: The Sequel to the Sequel
The movie tries to justify its found-footage gimmick by having one of the soldiers—Jones—record everything “for the archives.” Because apparently, during the apocalypse, people still think in terms of documentaries.
But halfway through, the film abandons its own format entirely, switching to a traditional cinematic style without explanation. It’s like the camera itself gave up. “I can’t do this anymore,” it says, metaphorically, before dying quietly in the snow.
The transition might have been an interesting meta twist—if it weren’t so jarring and random. Instead, it feels like the filmmakers realized their movie was unwatchable through the lens of found footage and decided, “Eh, maybe normal film mode will save it.” Spoiler: it doesn’t.
Character Development (May She Rest in Peace)
Leeann, the supposed emotional core of the film, is reduced to a plot device—a perpetual victim doomed to relive her trauma. Alix Wilton Regan tries her best, but the script gives her nothing except fear, tears, and a shotgun.
The rest of the cast drifts in and out of the narrative, their deaths so meaningless you barely notice when they’re gone. You know a film has failed when you need subtitles not for the accents, but for who’s still alive.
By the time the final survivor wanders onto a beach at sunrise, the only thing you feel is envy—because he’s finally free.
The Ending: Apocalypse… Now What?
The finale tries to go out on an existential note, with Maddox discovering a pregnant woman who believes the UK is still a safe haven. It’s supposed to be haunting, perhaps even hopeful. But after 90 minutes of gloom, grime, and gratuitous misery, it lands like a bad punchline.
You don’t feel fear or catharsis—you just feel relief that the movie is over. The apocalypse might continue, but at least the credits are rolling.
The Real Horror: The Editing
If World of the Dead has one lasting achievement, it’s proving that editing can, in fact, kill tension. Scenes cut mid-sentence, transitions appear out of nowhere, and time seems to warp inconsistently.
At one point, characters flee through a snowy forest at night. In the very next shot, it’s suddenly daylight and they’re somewhere else entirely. The movie treats continuity the way zombies treat human flesh: carelessly.
Even the sound design feels undead—voices echo weirdly, gunshots sound like someone dropping cutlery, and the score occasionally forgets it’s supposed to exist.
Final Thoughts: The Dead Don’t Walk—They Crawl
There’s something tragic about World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2. Buried beneath the cheap gore and handheld chaos is a glimmer of ambition. You can tell the filmmakers wanted to say something about humanity, morality, and survival. Unfortunately, what they actually said was, “We had a camera and some fake blood.”
It’s not scary. It’s not exciting. It’s not even bad enough to be fun. It’s cinematic purgatory—an endless trudge through mud, misery, and mumbled dialogue.
Even the zombies look like they’re trying to escape the movie.
Verdict: ★☆☆☆☆
World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 is a cinematic endurance test masquerading as horror. It’s bleak without being deep, violent without being thrilling, and slow without being thoughtful. Watching it is like living through the apocalypse—except the apocalypse would probably be more entertaining.
