A crowd-pleasing splatter-fest...

Rating: 7/10 (11 October 2009)

The horror genre owes the little vitality and originality it has left to comedy; hits like the Evil Dead series have paved the way for more recent efforts such as Shaun of the Dead, and it also means that through mitigating the sadism inherent to the genre with humour, filmmakers are able to pass gorier films through at the 15 certificate, as long as the violence is exaggerated to an absurd effect, as is true of the above films, and certainly of Ruben Fleischer's breakout feature Zombieland.
A ragtag band of survivors traversing a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested wasteland is hardly a new idea, so how does Zombieland freshen things up? A superb slow-motion opening credits sequence set to "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Metallica ought to do it, if not the unique tone introduced by narrator Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), an anxiety-ridden college student who has survived this long because he has no real personal attachments, and also due to his strict set of rules, such as always checking the back seats of cars he enters, and always "double-tapping" zombies to make sure they're dead.
In attempting to get to Ohio and see if his parents are still alive, he meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), an aggressive and charismatic man who lives only to hunt zombies and sink his teeth into any remaining Twinkies on Earth, but his search for the latter has so far been fruitless. The two form an uneasy partnership, deciding not to use real names and instead refer to each other by where they are heading. Things become even more complicated and uneasy as they meet sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who will do anything to survive, and seemingly cannot be trusted. They all share one common ground, though; they want to get to Pacific Playland, a theme park where there are reportedly no zombies.
Narration is so often a lazy expository device used to move the plot forward, but in Zombieland, it is used sparingly, most often for the sake of laughs, as the plot itself trundles along and doesn't require much explanation. Columbus frequently takes us out of the action to tell us a new survival rule, or to let us in on a bit of personal insight, or even inform us of the "Kill of the Week", and although Eisenberg's delivery isn't charismatic, that's exactly why it works, because he's the counter-balance to Harrelson's off-the-wall performance, the voice of reason in a group of selfish and untrustworthy survivors.
If there's something I have against Zombieland, though, it's that for a film running in at barely 80 minutes, it really ambles along carelessly without much focus for a good portion of its middle-section. It spends a little too long focusing on the journey through the wasteland and not enough on the thrill of the chase or the relentless undead; it should never let up, but it in fact goes almost entirely the other way and is at times quite inert. The gag rate is high enough, but those expecting laugh-out-loud japes may be a tad disappointed; it's more about subtle, witty parlance and pop culture references than gore-based sight gags and dark humour (notably as Columbus refers to himself as a "Sancho Panza character").
The film is strong for the most part, though, and hits its stride when the gang passes through Hollywood and meets a certain celebrity actor (who less considerate critics have already sadly spoiled), who enjoys an extended, hilariously self-deprecatory cameo that is the unequivocal highlight of the film. From here, things remain intense and funny right into and throughout the third reel, as the final showdown takes place at Pacific Playland, with our heroes using all manner of fairground rides to fend off the hungry horde.
The pacing is too leisurely and it's not the laughs-per-minute gag-fest that Shaun of the Dead was, but it's an original, visually inventive slice of film-making that's bolstered by a hilarious performance from Woody Harrelson, which is complemented by Jesse Eisenberg's more straight-laced turn. Eisenberg is slowly becoming a star in his own right after several strong performances now (in Roger Dodger, The Squid and the Whale and Adventureland), but let's hope that he doesn't get "Michael Cera syndrome" and become typecast as the awkward, socially inept kid, even if he does play it well. For a fun and brisk film that satisfies both as a crowd-pleasing splatter-fest and as a clever comedy, you'll find no better this Halloween season.