The Haute Critique

Okay, full disclosure… I play in a zombie themed rock band. I’ve been on zombie walks. I watched Night of the Living Dead when I was 11 and my mom got us our fist VCR… so I’m a bit of a zombie enthusiast I guess. But I didn’t enjoy Zombieland for the zombies. They weren’t zombies in the Romeroean sense. They weren’t what zombie purists would call “real” zombies. They are infected like in 28 Days Later. Which is okay. It’s not really important to the story what kind of zombie they are. The zombies are really only a motivational McGuffin.

Zombieland revels in humanity after it’s fall. It has a subversive undercurrent in a similar vein to Fight Club. It has a joyous nihilistic tone that says it’s okay to “enjoy the little things” as the world collapses around you. Discordian humor served with abandon.
Zombieland is about a geek who, faced with the end of the world, falls back on his his habitual obsessiveness and finds it a winning survival strategy. He meets another survivor and they meet some chicks, and they all move along the road to nowhere together. They’re all aware that the world is pretty much over, but they continue like people would, for no other reason than that that is what people do. They make things okay by keepin’ on. There is an unexplored implication that there are plenty of other survivors in the world, isolated though they may be, just waiting to meet up. Zombieland is ripe for a sequel, but doesn’t require it. It sets up a zombie apocalypse with people living inside of it.

And those people kill zombies.

But this isn’t a gore movie. There is some ooze and gooze, but it’s not the focus; there’s comedic zombie abuse, an incredibly well done cameo. Zombieland manages to be entertaining, while carrying it’s undercurrent of anarchism and conveys a conceptual payload without getting all preachy and boring. It manages to cut a line between fun and stupid without being annoying.

It’s funny, it’s violent, and it makes me feel good about the world. It’s all fucked up, but it’s okay to have a good time.

Zombieland on IMDB

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