Zombieland (2009)
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Columbus has made a habit of running from what scares him. Tallahassee doesn't have fears. If he did, he'd kick their ever-living ass. In a world overrun by zombies, these two are perfectly evolved survivors. But now, they're about to stare down the most terrifying prospect of all: each other.
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What critics say influenced Zombieland
Unlike its spiritual predecessor Shaun of the Dead , Fleischer’s film doesn’t really get either zombie movies or human relationships, and thus falls back on two-dimensional jokes and myriad mainstream crowd-pandering film references (including a sharp but too-brief star cameo) as a futile means of staving off encroaching, and eventually fatal, creative rigor mortis.
It goes on a little too long and does not match the inspired lunacy of "Shaun of the Dead," but it will keep zombie-philic audiences as happy as finding the very last Twinkie.
Like Shaun of the Dead, the film parodies and pays tribute to its genre antecedents and inspirations.
It may be tempting to compare Zombieland to Shaun of the Dead thus far the most successful zombie-themed horror-comedy to date but Fleischer’s film bears little resemblance to UK director Edgar Wright’s indie classic.
It’s been five years since the one-two punch of Zack Snyder’s amped-up “Dawn of the Dead” remake and Edgar Wright’s loving tribute “Shaun of the Dead” made the zombie movie mainstream entertainment again.
Some have compared it to Shaun of the Dead, which set the bar very high for zombie comedies.
At its best, "Zombieland" features good one-liners (about Russell Crowe's Twinkie consumption, among other things), a terrific reference to "Deliverance" and a delightful cameo by Bill Murray, who plays himself.
There are witty references to Deliverance, Titanic, Ghostbusters,and Anaconda, as well as a better joke about Garfield than any joke in Garfield.
And there are a few welcome surprises — such as references to both "Deliverance" and "Ghost Busters," and the ending sequence set in an abandoned West Coast amusement park.
Cue the theme song to Deliverance and hand that man a crowbar.
Far from the canny social satire of George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," and from the zany zombie movie homage of "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), "Zombieland" exists only to show zombies getting shot in the head, run over with SUVs, and generally murdered in fast and bloody ways.
Every zombie movie of the last 40 years already has an uphill battle, of course; each of them must be weighed against the genre-defining trilogy of films by George A. Romero begun with 1968's Night of the Living Dead , and zombie comedies in the last few years must not only contend with that insurmountable hurdle, but with another, nearly as damnable: the extraordinary Shaun of the Dead from 2004, arguably the funniest horror comedy ever made.
Zombies have been a staple for the horror film genre for many years, especially after George Romero’s excellent 1968 cult classic “Night of the Living Dead.”
Like most zombie flicks, this addition to an already overstuffed, undernourished subgenre more or less follows the gore-slicked path charted by George A. Romero in his sanguinary 1968 masterwork, “Night of the Living Dead” : the undead chase after the semi-alive.
The picture is beautifully paced, with an exhilarating, comically violent opening, a halcyon middle section where, in what could be viewed as a sideways homage to "Rebel Without a Cause," our rootless wanderers share a brief respite in an empty, lavish mansion, and a finale filled with light and color and movement (as well as piles of vanquished zombies).
Fleischer has made a movie that comes off as easygoing, but actually shows a remarkable amount of discipline: The picture is beautifully paced, with an exhilarating, comically violent opening, a halcyon middle section where, in what could be viewed as a sideways homage to "Rebel Without a Cause," our rootless wanderers share a brief respite in an empty, lavish mansion (I won't tell you whom it belongs to), and a finale filled with light and color and movement (as well as piles of vanquished zombies).
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It’s been five years since the one-two punch of Zack Snyder’s amped-up “Dawn of the Dead” remake and Edgar Wright’s loving tribute “Shaun of the Dead” made the zombie movie mainstream entertainment again.
There are four (temporarily five) human characters in Zombieland; the rest of the population has turned into slavering, gut-munching zombies (they sprint, like the flesh-eaters in the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake).
…opens like a comic-tinged version of 2004's " Dawn of the Dead " and then consistently surprises as it moves forward, reinventing itself again and again as the characters travel on and the ever-changing setting flutters by.
In recent years we've had the pleasure of being terrified by them in " 28 Days Later " and laughing at them in the blissfully absurd British comedy " Shaun of the Dead " (which may have made them harder to take seriously in 2004's "other" zombie movie, the remake of George A. Romero 's " Dawn of the Dead ").
The overall impression I had was of a filmmaker who watched Dawn of the Dead , and finding it confusing that though a satire it wasn't funny, set out to make to right that wrong and trying too hard.
Debuting director Fleischer's action-and-innards-drenched film dials it all up to 11 from the opening credits sequence – which, like Zack Snyder's underrated remake of Dawn of the Dead, uses pop-music-backed mayhem to smart expository and staggeringly kickass effect – and only slows down for a breather for the length of the aforementioned cameo.
Zombie movies have been around for some time now, the greatest being the Val Lewton-Jacques Tourneur horror classic I Walked With a Zombie (1943), a reworking of Jane Eyre on a Caribbean island.
Zombies -- those disheveled, shuffling, flesh-eating masses -- are suddenly en vogue, from the planned record-setting zombie assembly at this year's Voodoo Experience in City Park, to last summer's movie " Pontypool " to the potential Hollywood South remake "I Walked With a Zombie."
Actually, I have, and it was called "Night of the Comet," an underrated gem from 1984 that married John Hughes to George A. Romero .
One has to go back to “Night Of The Comet” (1984) to find a movie that plays the apocalypse for laughs like this.
The action-oriented, guns-blasting climax taking place at Pacific Playland is also loads of fun, like the ending of 1983's "National Lampoon's Vacation" if the Griswalds had to contend with blasting away swarms of zombies while partaking in the thrill rides.
They start with a premise that sounds like a horror-comedy remake of National Lampoon's Vacation.
During a pit stop, they are duped by a pair of female grifters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), with whom they eventually strike up an uneasy alliance and whom they escort to Los Angeles, to visit Pacific Playland - a sort of post-apocalyptic Walley World for you "National Lampoon's Vacation" fans - and a movie star's palatial mansion (the owner is played to the hilt in a surprise cameo by, well, it's supposed to be a surprise).
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The first that leaps to mind is a super slo-mo opening sequence set to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” that pinpoints specific moments where the irony of becoming a zombie is simply too funny not to laugh at—like a zombie bride tackling her new husband moments after the nuptials and a zombie stripper wearing pasties and chasing businessmen out of a strip club.
Equal parts gorefest and buddy-comedy, the film’s deadpan tone is doubly clear when Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” thunders over the opening credits.
Okay, a lot of what Ive said could also apply to George Romeros 1979 classic Dawn of the Dead.
Now, I tend to like my zombie films with some sort of glaringly obvious social commentary -- whether it's a satire of consumerism (1978's "Dawn of the Dead") or a riff on 30-year-old boys who need to grow up ("Shaun of the Dead").