Zombieland

Rating R Genre comedy Starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin Directed by Ruben Fleischer Publisher Columbia Pictures External Links

With Halloween just around the corner, a lot of people get in the slasher/horror film mood. If you’re looking for that from Zombieland, you have picked the WRONG movie. While it has more than enough flesh eating monsters, the movie is a far cry from the classics like Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Night of the Living Dead. No, this movie is INTENTIONALLY funny, as opposed to the others that are, a lot of the times more absurd than scary.

Set in a post apocalyptic zombie world, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is one of a handful of survivors. He is trying to get back to his Ohio home to see if his family is still alive or if they have become snacks or worse, zombies. We learn about his “rules” in a cleverly developed opening sequence. Some of the rules are “Cardio”, the “Double Tap”, and “Beware of Bathrooms”. On his way north from Florida, he runs into grizzled zombie killer Tallahassee (Woody Harreleson) who takes the younger Columbus under his wing. This character is the most appealing of the film, to me, as he satisfies such visceral urges in himself (and therefore the viewer). The first, and foremost, is of course zombie killing. The comedy in this movie is derived, in large part, from this very activity. I remember when I first saw the preview, I saw a zombie chasing a poor, defenseless, old woman who dispatches of her would be attacker by dropping a grand piano on his head. In truth, this movie is the closest thing to a live action cartoon I have ever seen since The Three Stooges.

In any case, the pair (Harrelson and Eisenberg) is constantly sidetracked by Tallahassee’s drive to find what he believes the one and lonely Twinkie left in Zombieland. They come across a couple of cutthroat and smart little pixies named Wichita and Little Rock. In quite a cunning fashion, the duo of girls tricks the guys out of their cars and guns not once, but TWICE. Quite hilarious. Columbus is able to convince the other three that their fighting is pointless as they may be the only 4 people left in Zombieland and survival would be a bit easier if they stick together. The two end up at a Native American store where they end up doing something a lot of people dream of doing and only rock stars usually get to do. “What’s that” you ask? They completely and UTTERLY destroy it, and they do it to monster headbanging song. Now tell me, what angry teenager hasn’t ever wanted to do that!?

They all decide to head to a theme park out in California to give Little Rock a taste of childlike wonder in Zombieland. On their way, Tallahassee decides that they need to find a base of operations and takes them to the very top of the A-List celebrity mansions, the home of one Bill Murray. I don’t want to give away what happens here, but this sequence of scenes in the movie may be a perfect microcosm of what the film is all about, in all of it's cartoonish glory.

The movie ends with a final showdown with the Zombies and our heroes at the amusement park. Once again, I’d really hate to give away the ending as Gavin Polone and Ruben Fleischer have worked really hard to make this a great movie. True to any good story, there is the perfect amount of drama, the perfect amount of action, and the perfect amount of self discovery to lead to a perfect resolution.

The bottom line here is that you need to go see this movie. Get some popcorn or Twizzlers, sit back, and get ready to laugh yourself silly because if you don’t, you might be a zombie yourself!!