Zombies, along with vampires, are clearly the two monsters with the best cinematic subgenres. Where the latter get romanticized by people who wear too much black and spend their time espousing middle-school learned philosophy, zombie aficionados celebrate the mindless nihilism of those who wander the earth looking for nothing more than a good meal. Of course, the nature of the zombie makes it rife for satire, seen at its best with George Romero’s commentary of a consumer culture in Dawn of the Dead and the opening-scene commuters in Simon Pegg’s Shaun of the Dead.

Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer avoids turning his feature film debut into a message movie, but it’s obvious that he’s a fan of the flesheaters. Better still, he knows how to make a horror/comedy/road movie about the living dead work. Contrary to what haters of the subgenre feel, a film about zombies isn’t all about the carnage and gore, a mistake that many films made after the resurgence of zombie popularity following 28 Days Later. Seeing how zombies can’t articulate their hopes, dreams and disappointments, it’s up to the survivors to keep our interest, and in this film with its minimal cast (there are only seven speaking parts), we never know their names, aside from one well-handled reveal. Dubbed for locales to avoid sentimentality, there is Columbus, the nebbish narrator (Jesse Eisenberg, last seen in Adventureland), who, as he puts it, “avoided people like zombies before they were zombies.” Columbus wanders the roads writing a seemingly unending set of rules to live by, the most important being “Cardio.” Along the way, he meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), who’s been killing zombies for so long that he prefers to improvise, in hopes of achieving the perfect zombie kill. The two form an uneasy alliance that leads them straight into the paths of sisters Witchita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin).

Of course, with a name like Zombieland, some people will want to avoid this like the zombie plague. It’s their loss. As one of Columbus’ rules states, we should enjoy the little things, and there are a lot of little moments to enjoy in this brisk, 81-minute film. There is considerably less gore than in other films of this genre. Zombieland is more about the living and how they interact with each other, such as one of many funny moments, where the older Tallahassee is incredulous that the 12-year-old Little Rock has never heard of Willie Nelson.

As the ragtag bunch make their way West for a chance of innocence lost in the form of an amusement park, there’s a pit stop in Beverly Hills for one of the funniest celebrity cameos ever. When you see it for yourself (and you should), stick around for the credits, where your patience will be rewarded.

Make no mistake, Zombieland won’t change the world. It won’t even change the zombie genre. But its director and screenwriters are fans, and they do it so well that they might make you one as well.

Trailer

The Rules