Zombieland (2009)

I don’t know why it took me this long to get around to watching this.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that everyone assumed that you couldn’t make a decent horror comedy. It was just kind of a truism that horror and comedy simply don’t mix; you could do a comedy that had some horror themes, like Young Frankenstein, or you could do a horror that had a few jokes, like the Nightmare on Elm Street films, but that was about it. Attempts had been made and they’d all failed, at least in the perception of the public, except for a few campy B-movies (I love Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Evil Dead 2 is one of my favorite movies, but come on…) where the laughs were as likely to come from the silliness of the film as from any humor written into the plot. It seemed impossible.
Shaun of the Dead changed all that, of course. It was funny as hell from start to finish, but it had a few moments that might well have come straight out of a George Romero film. Suddenly there was a template for a good horror comedy, and since then we’ve been in a bit of a golden age. Severance, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Slither, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, all entertaining films with the odd dash of ultraviolence or even genuinely creepy moments here and there. And some more serious horror has at least added humorous elements, like Cabin in the Woods or Drag Me To Hell. That’s a relief, really; the genre seems to have decided for the most part that it isn’t allowed to be fun anymore. There’s no joy, no playfulness, in a film like À l'intérieur or Martyrs. Straight horror has gotten hard to watch recently, but horror comedy is saving the day.
Zombieland just feels good. Most of the jokes hit, Jesse Eisenberg (Columbus) and Emma Stone (Wichita) are extremely likeable, the kid (Abigail Breslin) rarely aggravates me, and this is BY FAR my favorite performance by Woody Harrelson (Tallahassee). He’s the best horror hero since, well, Shaun. I like my heroes competent, unhinged, and speaking with southern accents, and he just rips into the zombies with such glee that you have to smile. Ruben Fleischer’s direction is pretty unobtrusive, but he paces the film extremely well; it bogs down very slightly when Stone, Harrelson, and our special cameo performer hit the hookah, but otherwise it clips right along. I was never bored for a second. A couple of the emotional beats even land, which surprised me, though the scene where Wichita and Columbus get drunk was a little clunky. And there's a deleted scene where the kid convinces Wichita to go back and pick the boys up after the girls have stolen their car that really should have been included in the film, but on the whole, it's very well put together indeed.
I hear this was originally intended to be a television series, but they couldn’t get any network interest, so they just made a film. I’ve also heard that they tried to make it into a web series last year and failed pretty ignominiously, through having no budget and being unable to land any of the original actors but still trying to use the same characters. That’s a shame; I would absolutely be into this if it became a series, even without Harrelson, Eisenberg, and Stone. It would be nice to have a cheerful counterpoint to The Walking Dead. Surely SyFy or somebody could pony up a few bucks. There must be a market.
So I'm gonna give this a solid seven, damn near an eight. Harrelson himself is a 10, and most of the rest of the movie is pretty damned good. This isn’t going to be at the top of my list, but it’s a definite eventual purchase.

BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM: Columbus' rules for survival, or rather, the way the rules keep popping up in the background every time one of them comes into play. I especially liked when Tallahassee runs over a zombie twice with his truck and “#2: Double Tap” is printed on the pavement, but basically every time it happened I grinned. But then, I watched the whole thing with a big dumb smile on my face.

WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM: The blossoming relationship between Wichita and Columbus could have been better, as mentioned above. Sometimes it works, as when Columbus puts his seat belt back on, and other times it doesn’t. When it doesn’t it’s a little aggravating, but I don't think it drags the film down. I can live with it.

SCORE: 7/10