ZOMBIELAND helps define the Zom-Com genre and is one of the year’s funniest films

Columbia Pictures | 2009 | Rated R | 80 minutes

Perhaps there needs to be a new subcategory added to the comedy film genre? After all, viewers are already accustomed to the romantic comedy, or rom-com, as it’s now being referred to in film parlance. Audiences are of course well versed too on black comedies, screwball comedies, “fish out of water” comedies, parodies, gross-out films, and for the more classically inclined, comedies of manners. But what about zom-com? That’s right, zombies are no longer the fodder of horror films alone, but rather are popping up in some of the funniest films in recent years. Five years ago, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright unleashed the penultimate film of the genre, the brilliant SHAUN OF THE DEAD that juxtaposed the horror of the walking dead attacking a community with the humor of the moribund electronics shop worker who was so caught up in his own personal drama that he was oblivious to that which was happening around him. The result was comedic brilliance and the zombie-comedy genre was born. Now, director Ruben Fleischer (“Fantasy Factory”) and writer Rhett Reese (CLIFFORD’S REALLY BIG MOVIE) are able to do the same in ZOMBIELAND, a riotously funny film that is part road movie, part buddy film, part love story and all zom-com.

ZOMBIELAND opens two months after a virus has decimated most of the world’s populace, turning ordinary people into aggressively psychotic zombies with an insatiable appetite to devour their human prey. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is a college student who is trying to make his way home to Ohio to see if his distant family is still alive. He has developed a personal set of rules for survival including the need for good cardiovascular fitness and the all important “beware of bathrooms.” He soon meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), the Twinkie loving macho guy who has made a sport out of hunting zombies and who is constantly trying to achieve his “zombie kill of the week.” Tallahassee is the best at what he does and he loves every single minute of it. The two eventually run across Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and the four set out to the West Coast to find a mythical place that is supposed to be free of zombies.

It is here that the brilliance of the movie is found, for Resse has done a phenomenal job of creating characters that are able to compliment the others by existing as opposites. Columbus is mild mannered and carries Purell with him to sanitize his hands whereas Tallahassee relishes in choosing which garish weapon he will use to kill his next zombie. Wichita and Little Rock constantly are one step ahead of the guys and can easily outwit them. Putting the four completely different characters together and letting the conflict and comedy develop from their differences is what makes the film so effectively funny. They are all survivors, but they have each developed their own unique way to cope with their current situation.

While many comedies would keep the characters only at this level of humor springing from conflict, ZOMBIELAND actually allows the characters to grow. Each character has their own backstory that is revealed slightly to the audience via short flashbacks, and while this is normally a monumentally poor choice for a filmmaker, in ZOMBIELAND it works very effectively. Audiences are allowed to see what drove the characters to become who they currently are within the timeframe of the movie and thus are imbued with a depth that one would not expect to find in the film. This allows the audience to relate to and empathize with each of the four main characters, but this never becomes heady and does not overshadow the comedy.

The fact is, this is an incredibly funny film and one that will most likely need to be seen multiple times to pick up on the lines that are missed during the audience’s laughter. Fleischer keeps his film short, letting it pack the most comedic wallop without having the premise grow tiresome. The four principal actors, who for the most part, and aside from the zombies, constitute the film’s entire cast, are all remarkable and give outstanding performances. Each has impeccable comedic timing and they each create such wonderfully dynamic characters, with their own individual idiosyncrasies, that they will have audiences roaring with laughter. In the recent trend of having big name stars make seemingly random cameos in a film, ZOMBIELAND does not disappoint, and is able to boast some of the most outrageously funny scenes ever featuring a cameo role.

ZOMBIELAND is all and all a really fun movie. Is it going to win a slew of accolades during award season? No. But the fact is, it is wildly entertaining and will have audiences laughing so hard that it hurts. ZOMBIELAND keeps the bar that was set by SHAUN OF THE DEAD still elevated high, making zom-coms a genre to be reckoned with.

Rating: