Diary of the Dead -- the movie

Zombie films have fallen far from Night of the Living Dead's criticisms of racism and anti-intellectualism. Diary of the Dead questions the usefulness of historians as they tend to get caught watching instead of participating; what happens when millions of people have camera-phones?

I'd much rather see a zombie film criticizing our cultures of consumption. Like have the story focus around a group of kids in high school as they cope with social (dis)order predicated on possessions (kid gets off of bus, asshole pulls up in new car, laughs derisively, pointing at the bus and sarcastically asks "That your new ride? I think I got it beat!"; all other kids stare and our kid remains cool, saying, "Hey, I'm sorry; I don't speak blinglish"). Add a gov't crowd control virus experiment gone south and as the infection rages through their town creating zombies that like shiny objects and brainz, the kids have to work their way through the mess.

Maybe make it a little harder for them by having zombies that can talk, but apparently only in adjectives and nouns. Make them human enough so that whether to kill them becomes a real question (is it worth killing someone over a way of life? but keep that one for the filmviewers, not the kids). What happens when the kids (or any group) resists integration into society?

Making that would probably get you pilloried as a Columbine apologist (we *have* to integrate kids into society), a separatist, or a jihadist. All of which seem like excellent questions to think over....