ZOMBIE FILMS TO WATCH BEFORE YOU DIE #9: "ZOMBIELAND"!

"ZOMBIELAND" (2009)

TAGLINE: "Nut up or shut up."

ENTIRE STORY IN AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE:

Uninfected living hit the road to look for America, but only find zombies...they have fun, anyway!


A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE CAN BE FUN? REALLY?

You betcha! Films with both comedy and horror are few and far between, especially ones done well...flicks like the monster movie "Tremors" with Kevin Bacon and "Shaun of the Dead" are fewer than you think. "Zombieland" also straddles that broad line between the funny and the bloody, and does so with an energy and sense of fun you have to experience to really appreciate. We're introduced to this parallel universe gone haywire by Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a loner and uber-geek who survived the onset of the zombie apocalypse because he didn't have any friends, and sure didn't go looking for them. His life has been defined by his fears, and so is his survival in a world all but dead. Think a very young Woody Allen, but much less neurotic.

It's a long, strange trip across the United States of Zombieland for Columbus as he hooks up with fellow survivor Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gun-happy redneck with his own issues, the most important being his obsession with Twinkies. They have a love-hate relationship with each other *and* with Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), a pretty pair of grifters who rob our guys twice! Can they all just get along, or will their final destination be final in a terminal way?



SO IS IT GOOD?


If you love movies with zombies and haven't seen "Zombieland", rectify that now! This film delivers not just as a 'zomedy' in the same twisted vein as "The Return of the Living Dead" and "Shaun of the Dead", it sort of brings the subgenre of undead horror to its logical conclusion, by finding *the bright side* to the zombie apocalypse. Think about it. In a living, civilized world, there's still stuff like rules and laws. But if the world's come to an end, you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything you want, with the one 'however' being most of the time you'll have to be on the lookout for snarling zombies!

The fun in "Zombieland" comes from watching the characters use that sense of freedom in spite of their personal baggage. It's Columbus and Tallahassee we find out the most about...the nerdy Columbus made a list of survival rules defined by his fears, while the go-getting Tallahassee is an ass-kicker in equal magnitude to the personal tragedy he won't talk about but clearly wants to forget. Wichita and Little Rock, while highly mercenary at first, warm to the guys as we discover what they most fear to lose as they focus on reaching an amusement park in California. At one point, all four characters enjoy some catharsis when they find a mostly-intact trading post and then wreck everything inside. (Honestly, I'd want to shoot zombies to improve my mood if I was in their shoes!) And I'm not about to spoil what happens after they reach a certain estate in Beverly Hills...!



OKAY, BUT WAS THERE PLENTY OF BLOOD AND GORE?


There's plenty of gory stuff in the first five minutes of the film alone! At the start we're given a look at how things in the USA broke down after the zombie infection hit, and introduced to the first of Columbus' rules for surviving zombies. Let's just say there's good reasons for his living by those rules! By and large, most of the violence is living against Infected...you know, high caliber bullets and blunt force trauma, among other more creative ways. Most of the zombie kills are splatstick, played for laughs, like an instance involving a falling piano! "Zombieland" also ranks up there with the "Dawn of the Dead" remake in sheer volume of undead getting dispatched, especially when the movie reaches its amusement park climax.


THE MORAL OF THIS STORY:


Travel *can* bring people closer together. It definitely might not be a good idea to make yourself up as a zombie and then surprise someone packing heat. Last but not least: keep in good running shape, double-tap Infected bastards in the skull, beware of bathrooms, and always buckle up...just live by those rules (and many others!), and maybe you too can survive a zombie apocalypse!

ZOMBIE FILMS TO WATCH BEFORE YOU DIE #8: "PLANET TERROR"!

"PLANET TERROR" (2007)

TAGLINE: "Humanity's last hope...rests on a high power machine gun!"

ENTIRE STORY IN AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE:

It's the zombie apocalypse with a Texas flavor as a rag-tag band of living fight to survive!

IT'S ABOUT TIME ROBERT RODRIGUEZ GRADUATED FROM VAMPIRES TO ZOMBIES!

Well said! In 1996, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez worked with Quentin Tarantino to make "From Dusk Till Dawn", which to many horror fans was a showstopper of a vampire movie. Fans asked themselves how those guys could top that. Rodriguez and Tarantino undoubtedly asked themselves the same thing, and bingo! As they each directed a "Grindhouse" film meant to salute the salad days of exploitation cinema, Rodriguez crafted "Planet Terror", a zombie movie that definitely cleaves its own bloody path!

How? Rodriguez puts in just about every exploitation element guaranteed to have horror fans grinning and to make the politically correct have a heart attack. At the forefront of it all is Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling, an exotic dancer who already has her own fair share of problems as the end of the world is brewing. Clandestine crimes are being committed at a nearby military base, and before you can say 'whoops!', a deadly gas escapes that starts turning normal folks into what the movie calls Sickos, Infected-type zombies that ooze as much as they eat human meat. Other plotlines converge, from a lesbian anaestesiologist (Marley Shelton) trying to get away from her borderline-homicidal husband (Josh Brolin), the local sheriff (Michael Biehn) and his barbecue-cooking brother (Jeff Fahey) feuding, an Army officer (Bruce Willis!) with ominous intentions, to lastly (but far from leastly) a guy named El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), who is much much more than he seems.

But first and last, the heart of the story is centered on Cherry, who undergoes a reluctant hero's journey unlike anything you could imagine without heavy liquor involved. First she must suffer the pain of losing one of her lovely money-maker legs. Then, after facing all manner of threats that bring steel to her soul, she's given the means to fight for her own life and for others immune to the zombie plague...by having a machine gun slapped on her stump and blowing away every Sicko in sight!

SO IS IT GOOD?

You have to ask?! It's AWESOME! Even if anybody who watches "Planet Terror" doesn't like it, they can't accuse it of being boring! This movie has a fast and furious pace that pauses only to briefly center on Cherry and other characters Rodriguez and the cast honestly want you to care about. But it's all done with a wink and a pure desire to have fun, which translates to fun for the viewer. And in this movie's universe, exploitation is the name of the game. The fact one lady character is cheating on her husband with another woman can safely be called normal compared to other things that happen! One character, for instance, has a thing for cutting off and collecting testicles! A little boy is looked after by a pair of sexy and foul-mouthed twin sisters. (They're related to Rodriguez, and billed as The Crazy Babysitter Twins!) And another character obsesses about making the perfect barbecue sauce even in the face of zombie invasion!

OKAY, BUT DOES IT HAVE PLENTY OF BLOOD AND GORE?

Ahem. Let's do the math. Rodriguez also directed "From Dusk Till Dawn", one of the goriest, most nihilistic vampire movies ever. This is his self-described exploitation movie. You want gore? How does one character getting pulled apart by Sickos grab you? Trust me, it's GORY!

BOTTOM LINE, DID ANYBODY GET OUT ALIVE?

Never mind, just go see the movie!

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY:

In an uncertain world, when one suffers tremendous loss...even losing a part of oneself...one must reach within to find the strength to face any obstacle as one reaches without to find the means to preservere. Or, one can simply say, whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger. So if you don't get infected by zombies, just take a machine gun to sub for your missing body part and start kicking ass!

ZOMBIE FILMS TO WATCH BEFORE YOU DIE #7: "28 WEEKS LATER"!

"28 WEEKS LATER" (2007)

TAGLINE: "When days turn to weeks..."

ENTIRE STORY IN AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE:

The British try to start over, but the Rage comes back to haunt them.

HEY, WE HAD TO WAIT FIVE YEARS FOR THE SEQUEL! ISN'T THE TITLE A LITTLE OFF?

We're talking about *story time*, you big dummy! The sequel is set 28 weeks after the Rage pandemic, and all the Infected seem to be dead...a NATO force headed by the Americans is working on cleaning up London and bringing back British citizens who had to evacuate before. Their simple yet profound aim is to rebuild the country, and bringing back survivors who once lived there is a big step in that direction. The promise and hope of bringing this part of the world back to normal is embodied in the reunion of two kids with their father, Don (Robert Carlyle). Don has a big skeleton in his past, however...when the outbreak had first hit he abandoned his wife Alice, the kids' mother, to the Infected to save his own skin. It's been a secret shame for him ever since, and he lies about what really happened to the kids.

The kids, a brother and sister, are naturally curious to know more because they miss their mom and want a picture to remember her by. They go into forbidden territory, to their old home in a part of the country that hasn't been cleared as safe, and to everyone's shock they find Alice alive! That's the only good news, though...it turns out from examination she's a carrier for a mutated strain of the Rage Virus. The Americans wisely decide to put Alice down before she can be a danger to anyone else...too late, because Don gets word and manages to find her first. It only takes one kiss for him to be infected with Rage, and all Hell breaks loose. Again...

SO IS IT GOOD?

Danny Boyle played the part of executive producer this time around, giving the directing reins to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. It was a calculated risk to do so, but the results in many ways make the sequel better than "28 Days Later". Although it's much more cinematic in some respects...such as when the military initiate Code Red, to terminate EVERYBODY, and they proceed in spectacular fashion...it's got the same you-are-there documentary feel that brings the viewer deeper into the story. Special kudos go once again to the cast who give excellent performances. We want to feel for Robert Carlyle's Don, even though he's a dick who could have spared everyone a ton of grief if only he had more guts.

OKAY, BUT WAS THERE PLENTY OF BLOOD AND GORE?

The sequel isn't just better, it's many many times bloodier. Unlike the original, when we skipped the breakdown of the world by focusing on a guy who was comatose when the Rage first struck, this time we're given a front-row seat to things falling apart and all the bloody terror that goes with it. In the most jarring moments of a chase, a military helicopter flies very low to the ground, and its blades chop scores of Infected to pieces. (Jarring and excellent, too!)

BOTTOM LINE, DID ANYBODY GET OUT ALIVE?

Only those with big guns and a lot of luck are spared, which doesn't include most of the principal characters...I won't spoil things by going further.

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY:

If you think you can do anything, like rebuild a country, then brace yourself because anything can happen TO you. A kiss is not just a kiss, especially with Rage-filled spit being in the mouth of one kisser. And here's one for parents: *keep your kids on a short leash!*