Ever since the commercial failure of Land of the Dead (which did eventually make its budget back… barely), George A. Romero was more eager than ever to return to his low budget roots and get back to making the movies the way he is most comfortable with. This is why he came up with the idea for Diary of the Dead, a Blair Witch Project-style horror flick that documents a zombie outbreak by essentially having the characters film the events that are happening around them. While the actors didn’t literally shoot the movie themselves like they did in Blair Witch (at least, I don’t think they did), it seems that Romero was on the cutting edge of a new trend in horror movies, which is being further popularized by Cloverfield and the Spanish horror film REC (which is also being remade for the U.S. under the name Quarantine).

The first trailer for Diary of the Dead has arrived online, and while the trailer itself is nothing to write home about, I do trust Romero to bring an interesting take to this format. Diary of the Dead stars primarily unknowns, with the exception of some cameos from the likes of Simon Pegg, Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro, Stephen King and Wes Craven, all of whom provide voices for newscasters apparently. The Weinstein Company will bring Diary of the Dead to select theatres on February 15th, but it will be interesting to see if it eventually finds its way into more multiplexes in the wake of the Cloverfield hype machine. Watch the trailer below.