Sunday, October 04, 2009

ZOMBIELAND (2009)


I caught the very fun ZOMBIELAND today and had a blast. Very much a film aware of its predecessors it is willing to both absorb and subvert them as it plays with what we expect from a comedy/horror while still delivering the goods. Using a voiceover to inform us how things got started (beware of tainted meat) and to allow a peek inside young naïf Colombus' (Jesse Eisenberg) neurotic nature the story moves along effortlessly. His list of rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse are amusing with the wisdom of staying in shape and the importance of seatbelts becoming evident as the running living dead rush at our gun toting heroes. Woody Harrelson was born to play the role he commands here as a slightly testy but good hearted zombie killer with a bad attitude and a desire for snack cakes. He’s extremely funny and knows exactly how to play in this genre. On the list of great modern horror comedies it isn’t as good as SHAUN OF THE DEAD or RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD but its pretty damned good. And I’d damn sure prefer a sequel to this next October than another freakin’ SAW movie.

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