(note: this post is roughly a month overdue due to a misplaced password.  This has been rectified)

Can I really give an objective assessment of a movie that was targeted as clearly and pointedly to a demographic I so neatly fit into?  Zombieland is targeted very precisely towards the 20-something geek demographic, and rightly so: we’re the primary consumers of zombie-related media.  But for whatever reason, Zombieland‘s pandering to my particular tastes (if you can call it pandering) rise above just being just geek escapist fantasy.  I have a few theories, and they are as follows:

First, Zombieland has a strong sense of humour.  This may have been amplified by the trailers shown before Zombieland; I cannot fathom five consecutive trailers that took themselves more seriously than Saw VI, 2012, Michael Bay’s Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Legion, and Wolfman.  All presented ridiculous movies with straight faces.  Zombieland, on the other hand, opens with a giant smirk that never leaves.  It’s charming in how unabashedly it proclaims itself as escapist entertainment, not an exploration of the depth of human depravity or the power of the human spirit bla bla bla.. It’s about killin’ zombies with banjos.

And second, Zombieland is really, really well made.  Is it ambitious?  Definitely not.  It’s scope is narrow; only four characters appear for more than 5 minutes.  But the movie is tightly directed, well-acted, and boasts some great comic timing.  It’s occasional scenes of drama are well-executed and don’t feel out of place in a movie as funny as it is.

In short, I had a smile on my face the whole time.  In some ways, it’s a kindred spirit with Scream; lots of nods to classic zombie films, genre-savvy characters, a higher than average dose of self-awareness, but also being well-crafted genre films in their own right that never stray too far into pure parody at the expense of the film.  But Zombieland never devolves into a by-the-numbers zombie flick, whereas Scream (and especially it’s sequels) devolves into a fairly standard slasher flick as it winds down.  It never decides that it’s been clever enough and can just coast through the rest of the movie with zombie gore.  In a lot of ways, it’s a love letter to zombie fans; Columbus’ list consists largely of things we all shout at the screen during other zombie films.  The geek gets the girl.  The badass anti-hero is ridiculously over the top… It’s geek wish fulfillment on the big screen.

But maybe most impressively is how confidently it balances being entertaining for both the core zombie movie audience (said 20-something geeks) and the secondary zombie movie audiences (the girlfriends/boyfriends they drag along).  It’s an incredibly difficult thing to do well, and Zombieland winds up being on par with Shaun of the Dead as being both excellent comedies and worthy entries in the Zombie movie canon.

So is that objective?  Probably not.  Maybe when I’m 40 I’ll pull this little movie off my DVD shelf and hate it for this that and the other reason.  But for now?  I’m still smiling thinking about this movie.

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