Diary of the Dead is a 1976 neo-noir

Neo-noir

Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Arvin Brown

Arvin Brown

Arvin Brown is an American theatre and television director and was the Artistic Director of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut for 30 years. He was married to actress Joyce Ebert until her death in 1997....

, based on the novel One Across, Two Down

One Across, Two Down

One Across, Two Down is a psychological suspense novel by British writer Ruth Rendell. it was first published in 1971. In 1976, it was made into the film, Diary of the Dead by Arvin Brown, starring Geraldine Fitzgerald and Hector Elizondo....

by Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell

Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, , who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, is an English crime writer, author of psychological thrillers and murder mysteries....

. It was produced by Charles B. Moss. Robert L. Fish

Robert L. Fish

Robert Lloyd Fish was an American writer of crime fiction. His first novel, The Fugitive, gained him the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel in 1962, and his short story "Moonlight Gardener" was awarded the Edgar for best short story in 1972...

, author of Mute Witness

Mute Witness

Mute Witness, is a 1994 thriller/horror shot in Moscow, Russia written, directed and produced by Anthony Waller. Although made in 1994, it was not released in the USA until the fall of 1995...

, the basis of Bullitt

Bullitt

Bullitt is a 1968 American police procedural film starring Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Vaughn. It was directed by Peter Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. The story was adapted for the screen by Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner, based on the 1963 novel Mute Witness by Robert L....

, contributed to the screenplay.

Plot

Stan (Hector Elizondo

Hector Elizondo

Héctor Elizondo is an American actor. Elizondo's first major role was that of "God" in the play Steambath, for which he won an Obie Award...

) and Vera (Salome Jens

Salome Jens

Salome Jens is an American stage, film and television actress. She is perhaps best-known for portraying the Female Changeling on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.-Life and career:...

), a childless couple, live with Vera's wealthy mother, Maud Kennaway (Geraldine Fitzgerald

Geraldine Fitzgerald

Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lady Lindsay-Hogg was an Irish-American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Early life:...

), who has already suffered a stroke. Maud dislikes and is openly contemptuous of her infertile son-in-law.

Stan dumps Kennaway's nitroglycerine pills down the toilet and replace them with worthless sugar substitutes. Maud Kennaway's friend (and Vera's godmother), Ethel Dean (Kate Wilkinson

Kate Wilkinson

Kate Wilkinson was an American stage, film and television actress, best known for her roles as Viola Stapleton in the CBS soap opera Guiding Light, a role she played from 1976 to 1981, and Clara Hudson on the NBC soap opera Another World, which she played from 1987 to 1989.In addition to...

), comes to visit, but Mrs. Patterson (Joyce Ebert

Joyce Ebert

Joyce Ebert was an American actress. She was particularly known for her work as a dramatic actress at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut where she portrayed both leading and supporting roles in more than 80 productions...

)'s boarding house

Boarding house

A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...

 is not ready. Unable to find her own pills, Ethel Dean uses some of Maud's now worthless ones, and dies on Stan's couch following a cardiac incident. Stan tells the 911 operator that the deceased is Maud Kennaway, and Dr. Klein (Austin Pendleton

Austin Pendleton

Austin Pendleton is an American film, television, and stage actor, a playwright, and a theatre director and instructor.-Life and career:...

) provides the necessary paperwork for her remains to be taken away for cremation

Cremation

Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....

. Maud wakes up, finds the body, and accuses him of murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

. Stan manages to dodge all her blows with her cane, which causes her to stumble and cut her head on the radiator

Radiator

Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in automobiles, buildings, and electronics...

. He buries his mother-in-law in the backyard and plants the new tree he purchased some time earlier on top of her remains.

Stan goes to Mrs. Patterson's boarding house to collect Ethel's things. After Maud Kennaway's will is read, in which Vera's portion is to be held in trust for any natural-born children, an investigation is opened to find Ethel Dean, also a beneficiary of Maud's will.