Zombieland For all you newbies out there, anything with the word “Zombie” in it, or with even a hint of ravenous, reanimated, cannibalistic humans in the trailer, is a must-see for yours truly. I know, it’s disgusting (of which Nita reminds me each and every time) but I can’t help it. Ever since I saw Night of the Living Dead back in 1970 or so I’ve been hooked. I wish it had been angels with heavenly messages and bright lights shining over their heads, but what can you do?
Zombieland is a quirky, unpretentious movie that tries to be funny in an ironic way, but ends up actually surpassing that admittedly unambitious goal. It is funny, but it manages to go beyond the usual Hollywood superficiality and find a hint of meaning in the midst of what otherwise is a plain old blood and guts flick. And make no mistake, the blood and guts are there in Technicolor, filmed in loving detail and über-graphic slow-mo. That’s part of the fun and expected in this genre.
The story revolves around a young twenty-something college drop-out—a phobia-laden, girl-challenged socially-inept boy. Some kind of plague—very briefly tied to mad-cow disease with a description of swelling brains, high fevers and ultra-violent outbursts fueled by an insatiable desire for human flesh—has rendered mankind all but extinct in a matter of months. A few normal’s are left, people who have been lucky and/or managed to survive by dint of a genetic propensity for zombie-killing. Woody Haralson is another survivor, born, it seems, to shine in the post-apocalyptic world of Zombieland. The two males accidently join forces and soon meet two females who waste no time scamming the boys out of their ride, food, guns, and everything else. It’s the classic story really; boy meets girl, girl turns out to be a grifter, boy rescues girl (and her little sister) from the zombie horde.
This movie is a good example of what decent writing (not great writing) can do for a terrible story—and let’s face it, anything with zombies in it must be, by definition, a terrible story. Tallahassee and Cleveland (no one uses names—you don’t want to form any lasting relationships in Zombieland) are polar opposites but seem to mesh as they go looking for the girls and their gear, killing zombies right and left along the way.
About a fourth of the movie takes place in Beverly Hills, in what is supposed to be Bill Murray’s mansion, and that sequence takes the film from just another pretty-good genre flick to memorable, and a sure-thing for cult classic. Murray is in it, playing himself, and that’s all I can tell you about that.
Amidst the scatological humor, disgusting special effects, and high-irony, they somehow manage to find moments (albeit brief) of sincere suspense and humanity. Which still doesn’t make it a good movie, but does make it a not-completely terrible movie. The director borrows a few gimmicks from Quentin Tarantino, with little asides in the narration, (like the Zombie Kill of the Week) and odd little scenes just for fun. It also borrows from the TV show Fringe with little 3-d labels and signs that appear randomly in the scene and sometimes break and fall down. Very odd, but I liked all that.
So . . . it’s rated R, and it wears that letter proudly, kind of like the big red “B+” my sister wore on her sweatshirt at BYU. (You English majors should get that . . .) Lots of foul language, lots of viscera being eaten, black fluids dripping (okay—spewing) from dead mouths, decapitations, vehicles running over bodies, the usual stuff. It is not for the mainstream movie-going audience, even though it is, ostensibly, a comedy. But it’s an existential comedy, full of angst, pathos and hubris, and the afore-mentioned irony. I do not recommend it for anyone. A few of you will want to see it and you know who you are. For the rest? Rent a classic. Had Nita, in her own brain-swollen fever, gone with me to see it, she would still be in the ICU.