Over the past decade or so zombie movies have gone from being gross gorefests that were the acquired taste of horror movie nerds to being one of the most popular sub-genres of entertainment out there. Now, in addition to zombie movies, we have zombie books, zombie TV shows, zombie video games, zombie-themed public events, and who knows how many different examples of zombie merchandising. The problem with this is, despite all of the zombie material out there, we still haven’t gotten too many unique twists on the traditional zombie story. Generally, some sort of plague has caused the dead to rise and mindlessly eat the living, the last few human survivors ban together and fortify some sort of building, and then there’s a big action climax when the zombie hoards get so strong that they begin breaking through the barricades and a last stand becomes necessary. Rinse, repeat.
Jonathan Levine’s (50/50, The Wackness) new zombie film, Warm Bodies, actually tries to mix things up a bit. Instead of telling its story from the perspective of the survivors, Warm Bodies tells its story from the perspective of a zombie. Instead of being a tale of survival and horror, it’s one of romance and comedy. Our protagonist is an undead cannibal (Nicholas Hoult) who doesn’t remember his name, but knows that it began with an R (so we refer to him as such). He spends his days mindlessly wandering around a zombie-overrun airport, having the vague sense that he’s missing some sort of spark and connection in his (non) life, but not really understanding completely what that means. The only breaks in his routine come when he occasionally meets another zombie (Rob Corddry) at an airport bar to exchange confused grunts, or when he and a rotting hoard head out to the city looking for human flesh to consume. This all changes when one of his flesh-seeking adventures brings him into contact with a group of young people scavenging for medical supplies though. The pretty blonde girl in their ranks, Julie (Teresa Palmer), catches his eye and awakens something inside of him that’s been long dead, and he curiously finds himself trying to rescue her from his zombie buddies instead of helping them eat her. After this development, his (non) life suddenly gets significantly more complicated.
In addition to staying fresh by changing up the zombie formula and being a romantic comedy for teens instead of a horror movie for sadists, Warm Bodies is also successful because it’s able to deepen the traditional zombie tropes in a couple of interesting ways. First off, zombiism is being used as a metaphor for depression here, which ends up working really well. There have been a few films that have made connections between the undead and the way we mindlessly cycle through our daily routines before, but to go as far as to link the condition with depression, and to show a character trying to work through the punishing heaviness of feeling dead in you own body, is not only dramatically exciting, but its a surprisingly effective way of bringing to life the effects of a common but commonly misunderstood disorder.
Warm Bodies also introduces the idea that when zombies eat peoples’ brains they get momentary flashes of their victims’ memories and emotions, and are able to briefly feel human. Not only does this tie in well with the overarching story of an undead creature attempting to rise above his position, but it also explains why zombies are always trying to eat peoples’ brains in stories like this, and it deepens the mythology in interesting and relatable ways. It would have been refreshing enough for this film to just put a unique spin on the tired zombie formula, but Warm Bodies goes a step further and adds things to the formula that other filmmakers might pick up and develop even further in the future; which makes it not only a worthy entry in a pre-established genre, but one that helps keep the genre vital as well. This is a goal more filmmakers should be trying to achieve.
Of course, the steps that Warm Bodies takes to make zombies more relatable run the risk of ruining the undead as an effective movie monster much in the same way that Twilight ruined vampires. Horror thrives on the fear of the unknown, so the more human and relatable you make your monster, the less frightening it’s going to be. That’s fine for a movie like this that’s more of a comedy, or a movie like Twilight that’s more of a melodrama, but it makes the job harder for the next film that comes along and tries to make these monsters scary. And really, shouldn’t the whole point of making a movie with a horror monster in it be to scare people? Of course, no rules are absolutes, and the effects here aren’t as egregious as they are in Twilight, because having a girl develop feelings for a monster who eats brains and is made out of rotting flesh is far more twisted and true to horror than having a girl fall in love with a monster who doesn’t hurt people and sparkles in the sunlight, so Warm Bodies shouldn’t raise the ire of the horror community too much.
Telling a story like this, that walks a razor’s edge between horror and romance, is a difficult balancing act, and the big reason something like Warm Bodies is able to succeed while something like Twilight fails is simple good writing and attention to detail. The basic premise here is that, as R becomes more attached to Julie, his heart begins to beat, his body begins to warm, and he becomes less of an empty, animated corpse. This is difficult to pull off. First off, putting all your focus on a main character who’s not able to talk, emote, or think all that much could have gotten pretty boring. And, conversely, having him too quickly and too completely turn into something resembling a regular, living guy would have felt like cheating and would have been pretty pointless. Warm Bodies’ script paces things correctly and handles the transformation subtly enough that it works. We spend enough time with zombie R to establish how bleak life as an infected corpse is, but not so long that the story lacks humanity. And he grows incrementally throughout the film, just enough to keep the story moving forward, but never so much that it no longer feels like we’re watching a movie about a zombie.
Surprisingly enough, the action element of the zombies and the humans being in a fight to total extinction works pretty well too. You’d think that the romance would be the main attraction and any zombie action would be incidental, but the big action climax is treated as being important as well. The scenes where the humans fight the approaching hoards are definitely the most tired and overused aspects of the film, but we care enough about the characters to make their fates matter, and the results of the war are tied so intrinsically to how the relationship at the heart of the film is going to play out that the fighting actually has meaning and isn’t just an excuse to give the movie a loud climax so it can be marketed to a broader audience. That’s good writing.
The cast Levine has put together is generally strong too. In trying to make us relate to a character who’s shuffling around and groaning for most of the movie, Hoult probably has the most showy job, and he manages to thread the needle of emoting enough to keep us engaged but being subtle enough to not make us aware of his performance pretty well. Palmer’s job, sneakily, is perhaps just as difficult. Her character could have seemed like a freak for bonding with a zombie so quickly, or conversely she could have come off like a bitch for continually rejecting the (dead) guy who was protecting and caring for her, just because he’s a little different, but she too manages to keep you rooting for her character throughout all her trials and tribulations. She’s just so warm and relatable a presence that it’s hard to stay mad at her for long. The supporting roles are kind of a mixed bag. Analeigh Tipton and Dave Franco don’t get enough time to resonate one way or the other as supporting human characters, Corddry gets the line of the film and nails its delivery as the only other zombie we learn anything about, and John Malkovich is kind of annoying playing Julie’s father as a cartoonish, one-dimensional blowhard. Overall though, the acting serves the material well.
The cherry on top of the rotting, maggot-filled dessert is the fact that Warm Bodies has some style too. It develops an effective romance, it’s got legitimate laughs, it doesn’t throw the zombie genre completely under the bus, and it gets you engaged in its climactic moments, which would have been enough to add up to an effective film already, but it’s also full of gorgeous natural light photography and images that juxtapose nature with urban decay, and it’s got a really great and somewhat eclectic soundtrack that elevates several scenes beyond what they would have been otherwise. Aesthetically this movie is kind of like a series of indie rock album covers come to life. It’s that style, and the way the movie smothers its sentimental romance stuff in delicious zombie genre stuff like cheese over broccoli, that could make it resonate with young audiences and become a big success. Or perhaps it will eschew the norm too much to be embraced by the mainstream while it’s in theaters. But, in that case, it would still make a good home video double feature with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, another underappreciated film that delivered a teen romance alongside a barrage of youth culture insanity—so chances are Warm Bodies will manage to find its audience eventually. Why not be one of the first to get on the bandwagon?
