Watch Out For Those Contaminated Burgers!

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2010)

For women who want to learn how to (supposedly) catch a man, there is Fein & Schneider's infamous 1995 book "The Rules." However, those who want to know about a different set of rules--specifically, those pertaining to surviving a zombie apocalypse--are advised to check out Ruben Fleischer's 2009 horror comedy "Zombieland." In the opening, perhaps funniest section of this consistently LOL-funny movie, a diffident, IBS-afflicted college kid, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, who currently stars as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network"; ironic, as one of his funniest lines as Columbus is a Facebook put-down), gives us a half dozen illustrated rules for escaping "the plague of the 21st century": the remarkably swift-moving flesh eaters. (As in the recent "28 Days Later," the zombies here are not lumbering, reanimated corpses, but rather crazed, homicidal victims of a viral pandemic, in this case brought about by contaminated burgers.) Columbus soon encounters three other noninfected humans while traveling from Austin to his namesake hometown in Ohio: Tallahassee, who excels at the art of battling zombies and is very amusingly portrayed by Woody Harrelson, and two young sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). (How the two sisters--if they really are sisters--come to hail from different burgs is never explained.) Ultimately, the four decide to cruise over to L.A.'s supposedly zombie-free Pacific Playland (an amusement park in wintry Valdosta, Georgia was actually used). In his first go as director, Fleischer keeps his film zipping along smoothly and efficiently. His picture is perhaps more successful as a comedy than as a horror film, however; the requisite zombie carnage is hardly anything new or original, and no zombie kills on the order of the imaginative flame-up by flare gun, as seen in George A. Romero's 2010 outing "Survival of the Dead," are to be had here. The film veers sharply into the land of the absurd when the quartet crashes the L.A. mansion abode of Bill Murray, and starts goofing around with the big man himself. (The line about Eddie van Halen is a riot.) Actually, the entire film is something of a hoot, with a cracklingly funny script and some very able performances by the four leads. And yet, the gorehounds out there shouldn't be disappointed; the action scene between Columbus and his crazed neighbor in 406, and the final zombie slaughter in the amusement park, are pretty darn gripping. In all, the film is tremendous fun. And oh...all you "Caddyshack" fans out there (I have never been one) will certainly want to stick around for that final coda after the end credits....