Zom-Com road pic with a "first time this happened" moment

Rating: 9/10 (5 February 2010)

First there was The Return of the Living Dead (1984). I thought nobody could make a funnier Zom-Com (Zombie-Comedy) than Dan O'Bannon's opus back then. Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright proved me wrong when they made Shaun of the Dead nearly two decades later. Again, I thought nobody could top the Zom-Com hilarity in Shaun. Well, what do ya know Ruben Fleischer and his writers didn't exactly prove me wrong this time but I must say Zombiland is just as funny and witty as Shaun. What the film impressed me most was "the first time this happened in movies" moment. Even in the most entertaining flicks, that happens so rarely nowadays, but Zombieland provided me with that moment with a vengeance. (To talk about it will undoubtedly spoil a plot element so PLEASE DON'T READ FURTHER if you haven't seen the film yet!) That moment involved the "mystery guest" and never in my life have I laughed so hard at a lovable character's tragic death scene like a maniac. Neither I recall a moment in cinematic history (not that I've watched all the movies ever made) where the "killer" and the "killed" are both so adorable. I consider that alone a huge accomplishment. After all, I wasn't laughing at James Karen's death scene in The Return and neither at Bill Nighy's in Shaun.