Well, lookie what we have here! Another horror movie that successfully combines scares, tension, and humor. While initially it seemed odd to have another horror-comedy in the zombie sub-genre after the wildly successful Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland is extremely well done to stand alongside its cinematic sibling without infringing on it.
Prior to meeting our main characters, the film starts with a nice montage of random zombie attacks that show the time between the initial outbreak from a mad-cow laced cheeseburger to the present events of the film set to Metallica. We are then introduced to Columbus (or the name we know him as) who introduces us to the rules that kept him alive a few months after the zombie onslaught. Columbus is very neurotic and paranoid and while these traits ultimately helped him survive, he would be dead first in most zombie movies.
Tallahassee is a bit of a rough-neck with a burning desire for Twinkies but little else driving him other than the his disdain for the undead and his enjoyment of eliminating them as personally as possible. Wichita and Little Rock round out the cast as two sisters with the ability to make stupid men do stupid things. The story largely centers around their trip from middle America to the west coast to attend an amusement park and little else other than the banter between the characters and dealing with a post-apocalyptic world.
What sets the film apart is the great sense of humor. Unlike Shaun, this is not really a send-up of the zombie movie genre, merely a movie about zombies which happens to be funny. Columbus attributes his survival to a set of rules which do poke fun at some of the stupid things you would expect to see in a zombie film but have not yet. At least, I can’t think of another zombie movie with an attack in a bathroom stall (but then there are about ten thousand zombie movies I haven’t seen). Really it seems more of a standard survival-in-a-world-gone-awry movie as it could have worked without the zombies with a bit of retooling. But when the undead are onscreen, it is a good time between the abundance of blood and gore and Tallahassee’s aforementioned hatred for them.
Most issues you might have with the factual content of the film (can electricity really last for months without human intervention?; where are all of the 300 million zombies?) are easily ignored when watching the brilliance onscreen. While it may fail at scares, Zombieland is great for zombies and great for humorous characters in a humorless situation.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I finally got to see this movie for the first time last night and I was pleasantly surprised. My expectations were set on low but after only a few minutes and some good laughs, I turned that attitude around. Some parts of the movie tended to drag a bit longer then needed, but my anticipation for the next scene kept me watching. My only real issue was the same, almost all of humanity turned in ravenous brain eating monsters, but you may have see 20 or so on their actual trip. The end gruesomeness was worth the wait though. For some reason I was dying for a twinkie by the end of the movie…
February 5th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
It’s also worth noting that this was developed as a TV series but tweaked into a movie after that fell through. This might explain why there was more emphasis on the character driven aspects of the movie with the long stretches of no zombies. While it sucks it didn’t make it onto weekly television (because I would definitely watch that religiously), this means that there is plenty of material for sequels.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:15 am
That’s something I did not know. I am eager to see which path it takes now.
February 7th, 2010 at 2:48 am
Vitor’s fists of fury
February 15th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
All I have to say PBF, is this… “Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione…
March 11th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
I must add it to my collection!!!!