A Great Source of 'Paranormal' Scares

by Brett Parker

You’ve probably heard all the hype by now. That Paranormal Activity is a $11,000 horror indie being cited as one of the scariest movie in ages. That the film’s release started off very small until overwhelmingly positive word of mouth caused moviegoers to hit the net and “demand it” in their cities toward a wider release. That Steven Spielberg himself was reportedly so scared viewing this film that he stopped watching it halfway through. Bloody-Disgusting.com cheerfully boasts that with this film, “nightmares are guaranteed.” So what’s the deal with this little scary-movie-that-could? Is it really worth all the hype?

The film has finally arrived at my local multiplex and I’ve thrown my very own eyes upon it. My answer to that question: absolutely! Paranormal Activity is the real deal: that rare fright fest that holds you in its grasp, plays around with you, then jabs you with big-time scares you won’t soon be able to shake. What makes the film so remarkable is how bare-bones simple the production values are and how powerhouse effective the terror turns out to be. Like The Blair Witch Project before it, the film is a low-budget account of supernatural horrors made to feel realistic. While the new film may borrow some pages from the Blair Witch playbook, it smokes the former in concept and fascination. Behold a new horror classic that truly will make you lose a few nights’ sleep.

The film opens with a man named Micah (Micah Sloat) playing around with a new video camera. The framing device is the fact that every scene from the film will be generated by Micah’s camera; we never see footage outside of his own personal lens. Micah has bought the camera to figure out just what the hell is going on with his girlfriend, Katie (Katie Featherstone). Ever since she was a little girl, Katie has suspected that she has been plagued by a supernatural presence, one that may have now followed her into her new suburban home she shares with Micah. A psychic expert (Mark Fredrichs) consults the couple in their home and informs them that a demon may be drawn to Katie with the intention of wreaking havoc. His prognosis: do nothing that will agitate the demon and consult a demonic expert as soon as possible.

Micah discards this advice and comes up with his own plan, thanks to his trusty camera. He sets up the camera at a wide-angle, voyeuristic view in their bedroom and plans on recording themselves while they sleep. With the help of night vision and an on-screen clock, the couple will be able to see if any strange occurrences happen within the darkness of their slumber. Most of the film consists of us watching this footage and it proves to be quite a terrifying sight. For a demonic presence really does make itself known throughout the house. At first, it starts off by playing with doors and making ambiguous noises. But this evil being is just getting warmed up! It has wickedly devilish tricks up its sleeves meant to pull the couples’ nerves inside out!

We go to horror movies for good scares, but there are too many times where Hollywood vehicles rely on distracting computer effects and quick jolts in place of something that can truly shake us. It was said that DreamWorks wanted to pump this story up with big stars and a costly budget, but if any gloss was added to this concept, it would probably be no different than the usual spooky trash. The modest budget allows writer-director Oren Peli to move away from showy special effects and towards primitive fears of things that go bump in the night. Most of the film’s scares are made up of shadows, thuds, noises, acting, and simple objects arranged in a way that creates great unease and intensity. Towards the end, a key character enters the house and has one small piece of dialogue that generates more creepiness than any CGI creature in recent horror memory. I can picture this film being a true inspiration for amateur filmmakers. On its surface, Paranormal Activity looks like the kind of film that anyone with a camera, editor, and a sly sense of cheap special effects can pull off.

The masterstroke of the film is the way Peli exploits the vulnerability of sleep and the menacing nature of darkness as terrors that can grip any audience member. These primal fears are generated by the terror of not being able to see or grasp an unseen entity that is out to harm you in your most vulnerable and fatigued state. The cleverness of the demon is in the way it keeps its dreadful deeds hidden within the shadows and in subtle undercurrents, making the anticipation of its acts just as terrifying as the acts themselves. Peli is aware of this principle and uses it to push our sense of pulse-pounding dread to its absolute breaking point.

With his two leads, Peli has found actors that not only give off a vivid vibe, but make us reflect on how our own frantic anxieties would play out in the face of supernatural horrors. Featherstone generates a genuine arc from level-headed female to frightened victim quite convincingly. Sloat, on the other hand, is curious in the way he cares more about putting everything on film than the devastating condition of his girlfriend. There’s a certain pigheaded ignorance to his actions than can simultaneously agitate his girlfriend, the demon, and certain audience members. Yet if it weren’t for his aesthetic drive and his misguided efforts, there certainly wouldn’t be the movie as we know it. Perhaps within this suburban nightmare, Peli is using his characters to comment on the domestic frustrations of men trying to help with their girlfriend’s issues. Micah tries with considerable effort to save his girlfriend from her plights, but he doesn’t have the grace or the wisdom to fine-tune himself to her feminine needs. I can imagine what ultimately happens to Micah in the end being a wicked metaphor for what usually happens to boyfriends who try to intervene with their loved ones’ problems.

Comparison of this film to The Blair Witch Project almost seemed inevitable, for both films employ grainy, bargain-basement values in capturing the essence of obscure terrors hidden within darkness. Both films try for a device of real-life footage of real people discovered in the aftermath of a supernatural attack. Both films kept the source of the frights hidden in obscurity with the anticipation of the nightmarish threats being the true source of fear. While Blair Witch was an effective and scary film, I feel Paranormal Activity outdoes it considerably. Its concept is more focused and its ideas are more compelling and fearful. Blair Witch suffered from the fact that it allowed its characters to meander with their wild anxieties where Paranormal Activity appears to have a tighter plot with very few missteps. I guess the supernatural is scarier when it lands on your doorstep as opposed to some far off woods area.

I usually find it very difficult to be scared by a horror movie, for my film intellect allows me to consider the genre’s technical aspects over the intention of the projected fears. There’s a short list I have of movies that have genuinely scared me. These titles include The Shining, Halloween, 28 Days Later, and now it appears I’ll have to add Paranormal Activity to that list. This could very well be one of the best scary movies I’ve ever seen. Perfect execution. Effective backstory. Fascinating threat. Not a wasted frame. Its biggest flaw is perhaps the realization that it lacks penetrating themes akin to most great horror classics. This enterprise is all a stunt, but it’s a ghoulishly delightful one; one that will probably stay parked in your nightmares for a very long time.

A Vengeful 'Citizen'

by Brett Parker

Law Abiding Citizen is the kind of the thriller that you know is on shaky ground in terms of plausibility, but you find yourself entertained by it anyways. It’s kind of frustrating that it isn’t the most intelligent realization of its clever premise, but the plot generates just enough suspense to keep you sustained and it has just the right action-thriller tone to keeps things interesting. But considering the acting talent on board here, you wish the film could’ve been so much more.

The film opens with a scientist named Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) working on a project while his wife (Brooke Stacy Mills) and daughter (Ksenia Hulayev) prepare for dinner in their ordinary suburban home. There’s a knock on the door, and two hostile sociopaths named Darby (Christian Stolte) and Ames (Josh Stewart) come pummeling through for a home invasion. Clyde miraculously survives but helplessly witnesses the savage assault and murder of his wife and daughter before passing out. Due to his testimony, the two criminals are eventually captured and sent to trial. Clyde’s attorney, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) fears that if the two are taken to trial, there won’t be enough evidence to put them away. Therefore, he accepts a plea bargain in which Darby will testify against Ames, putting Ames on death row while Darby gets a minimal sentence. Clyde is outraged at this development and feels they should both be punished to the fullest extent with no mercy. Rice goes through with the deal, feeling that “some justice is better than no justice” while Clyde’s anger brews more intensely.

Ten years pass and Rice’s attorney career has skyrocketed to successful heights. Yet his world becomes violently shaken up the day it is discovered that Darby has been brutally murdered by disturbing methods. All evidence points to Clyde, who has spent the past decade plotting an elaborate act of revenge. The cops find him and place him in a maximum security prison, but that doesn’t stop his plan at all. As Clyde is locked up behind bars, everyone he seeks revenge against is still being murdered one by one on the outside. The judge, the attorneys, and everyone who had a hand in Darby’s original plea bargain meet macabre ends through sly and precise murder methods. It’s clear that Clyde is behind these murders, but how can he possibly commit them from behind bars? Does he have an accomplice of some sort? What is the method behind his madness?

When you reflect on Clyde’s plan, you realize it has vengeful implications but a rather sloppy execution. Clyde hopes that his diabolical murders will expose the flaws and ambiguities of the legal system as we know it, but all he is really doing is murdering people in the legal system one-by-one. He is striking against those who’ve obviously offended him, but he’s hardly exposing shady methods of the law in any recognizable way. Perhaps it would’ve been more devious if he had set up carefully planned traps in which the shady dealings of the legal system would be exposed out in the open. What if he blackmailed the Judge (Annie Corley) threatening to expose manipulated legal secrets? What if he somehow placed his targets in compromising positions that expose contradictions within the law? Like The Joker in The Dark Knight, maybe each trap could’ve proposed complicated moral situations in which his enemies would have to think like humans instead of self-serving lawyers. Ideas like this could’ve brought a more thoughtful significance to the film.

F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job, The Negotiator) has proven to be a competent director of generic action thrillers and he brings that same sense of formal competence to Law Abiding Citizen. He seems to specialize in hostile hyper-realities in which characters have a single-minded need to obtain their goals in rather dangerous situations. He doesn’t really bring much dramatic depth or philosophical musings to his work, but plays everything for its formulaic face value. Even a well-crafted thriller like The Negotiator owes more to careful-plotting than human nature. Still, he always tries to make sure that audiences get their moneys’ worth and that the standards of Hollywood action are met with adequacy, something he achieves this time out.

Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler can be the most likeable and intense of dramatic actors and their talents are truly relished in this generic outing. Butler especially brings conviction and feeling to a wildly contradictive character. Clyde is a man revealed to be a loving family man, a deeply-wounded victim, an intelligent scientist, a criminal mastermind, and a blood-thirsty sociopath pretty much all at the same time. The wrong actor in this role could’ve exposed the whole preposterousness of the character and imploded the whole enterprise. It’s rather impressive that Butler can make this character work. Foxx has very little to work with in the role of Rice, he’s written mainly as a bystander and a one-note investigator, but he tries to bring to the character as much focus and interest as he possibly can. These are two talented actors playing way below their potential, but they make the film more entertaining and convincing than it probably deserves to be.

When it comes to revenge plots and calculating suspense, I’ve seen way better thrillers than Law Abiding Citizen. Yet the film works; there’s enough juice in the performances and there’s a genuine interest in how Clyde’s plan ultimately plays out. The result may seem underwhelming and implausible, but at least we enjoy the ride along the way. I only wished it played with the idea of legal system exploitation a little more intelligently. I think in a future retrospect, this film will be remembered as an example of Gerard Butler’s considerable range and talents.

The 'Wild' World of A Child

by Brett Parker

Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are has been described as “a children’s movie for adults.” I prefer to think of it as a grown-up art house film for children; a movie in which they’re trusted to identify with deep emotional revelations and musings regarding their inner beings and feelings. Indeed, I can’t remember the last time a movie nailed what it’s like to be a 9-year-old so accurately and beautifully. In adapting the wildly popular and award winning children’s book by Maurice Sendak, Jonze has highlighted the very essence of being a child in a dramatic way that wildly avoids being sugar-coated family friendly pop. While the film’s surface plot isn’t as fascinating as its underlying implications, it’s still a unique cinematic experience to relish.

As the film opens, we meet Max (Max Records), an imaginative yet lonely 9-year-old. We follow Max as he plays around in his suburban home: building forts, throwing snowballs, and running around while pretending to be a wild beast. He constantly wears what appears to be a wild animal costume equipped with paws and lion whiskers. Max feels overwhelmingly isolated in his home due to the fact that his older sister (Pepita Emmerichs) would rather hang out with her school friends than play with him while his divorced mother (Catherine Keener) is distracted with work and a new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo, in a minute yet effective cameo). Everything comes to a head one night when Max’s mother invites her boyfriend over for dinner. Max runs wild and causes chaos to express his inadequacy and rage. He stands on top of the dinner table, shouts that he hates his mother, and even tries to bite her. Furious, his mother tries to send him to his room without dinner, but Max runs off into the night to try and escape his hurt feelings.

Max finds himself occupying a small sail boat and sailing off into the waters of the night. He eventually collides with an island in his imagination occupied by the Wild Things, 9-foot-tall beastly creatures with oversized heads and animal-like features. Max discovers that these creatures have wildly unpredictable behavior and also seem consumed by childlike emotions. There’s Carol (James Gandolfini), a melancholy dreamer, Douglass (Chris Cooper), a rational-minded bird, KW (Lauren Ambrose), a thoughtful feminine mind, Judith (Catherine O’Hara), a petty criticizer, Ira (Forest Whitaker), a meek lunk, and Alexander (Paul Dano), who is constantly neglected. When the Wild Things first meet Max, they try to eat him, but thanks to some quick thinking and imaginative lines, Max convinces them to make him their king and in charge of their daily activities. Given a golden crown and a ruling scepter, Max cheers to “let the wild rumpus start!”

As king, Max spends his days holding silly games and playful activities with the Wild Things, such as having dirt fights, knocking over trees, and building an elaborate fort in which they can all live. What stuns Max is the fact that the Wild Things behavior mirrors the confusing emotions and events of his own life. His strongest identification is with Carol, who also despairs of the growing distance between his family members and is plagued by an almost crippling loneliness. The Wild Things mirror Max’s pain and confusion, yet do so in a more outsized manor. Therefore, Max becomes increasingly scared that the Wild Things will become so consumed by their hurtful feelings that they’ll put him in harm’s way.

What is first and foremost impressive about this film is the puppetry work used to bring the Wild Things to life. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop produces exquisite work once again by creating life-size creature Muppets to make the Wild Things feel like they’re actually there. It makes things look more visually arresting, for every time wind blows against their hair or leaves stick to their body, there really is something tangible there to bounce off of and the effect is priceless. Taking this puppetry one step further, animators and a digital effects crew had the actors act out their characters’ emotions and captured them digitally to impose over the creatures’ faces. The effect is spellbinding, digitally imposing undeniable human faces over realistic creature puppets. To me, the film’s most dazzling image comes towards the end, where Carol breaks down into hysterical sobbing. This oversized creature looks so remarkably human and so convincingly melancholy that the effect will haunt you long after the movie is over. These effects have to be seen to be believed. If nothing else, this film really is something of a visual effects landmark.

Maurice Sendak’s book appeared to use the images of the Wild Things as a metaphor for the angry emotions of a child. For the film, Jonze hunts for bigger game by appearing to incorporate the entire canvas of childhood emotions within the landscape of the Wild Things. In this mystical land, Max is able to recognize his own feelings of isolation, depression, rage, silliness, confusion, playfulness, and exuberance. Spike Jonze, a director with a sublime gift for highlighting deep, peculiar emotions, uses his in-depth camera skills to bring an intense focus on all of the film’s emotional bases. He completely disregards a family film’s need to stick to an appealing plot and penetrates relentlessly towards the material’s inner-depths. As with his last film, Adaptation, Jonze centers on characters who clash grandly with their inner feelings and inadequacies only to discover an enlightened understanding of them. To bring such a need for dramatic realism to a childhood fantasy tale is a rather bold stroke and brings an overwhelming maturity to the family film genre.

All of this has made Where the Wild Things Are sound like a powerhouse classic. While it’s certainly unique and deserves to be singled out from all the rest, I didn’t find it as entertaining on the surface as it should have been. Even though the film is more about emotions than plot, it can’t be ignored that the plot itself plays out rather thinly. Watching the film, you feel like a little has been stretched out a long way and there are certain passages that don’t connect very strongly with the power of its underlying themes. Part of the problem is that most of the Wild Things aren’t as vividly carved out as Carol is. We can see how Ira, Judith, and Alexander are meant to signify sections of Max’s heart, but we don’t feel they’re fleshed out as dramatically as they should be, diminishing the film’s effect. Sendak’s book consisted of only ten sentences and perhaps Jonze and his co-scripter David Eggers found some difficulty in stretching this small tale out into feature length. The film isn’t as interesting to watch as it is to contemplate.

Yet perhaps I need to look at the film again. So complex and uncompromising is this work that it most certainly merits repeat viewings to soak everything in. On the surface though, it is highly admirable and satisfying that Jonze has made a film that respects the minds of its young audience and challenges them to employ their artistic intellects. Children, of course, can be the most curious and thoughtful of creatures, so why shouldn’t they have their own art house film that challenges their feelings? While most grown ups fear this film will fly right over their heads, I believe children just might appreciate this imaginative nourishment as a solace from the usual pop junk food they’re served.

A Comedy to 'Retreat' From

by Brett Parker

Couples Retreat is a comedy starring one of the funniest comedic actors working today with a script written by the creative forces behind Swingers and Iron Man. That everything goes so spectacularly wrong is rather jarring. I didn’t think it was possible for Vince Vaughn and his posse to make a comedy worse than Four Christmases, but they’ve really outdone themselves this time. This could be the worst work of everyone involved.

As the film opens, we meet a set of four couples who each have their own set of problems. Dave (Vince Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Akerman) have let the daily concerns of suburban family life get in the way of one-on-one time. Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) have lost whatever physical spark they used to contain and barely acknowledge each other. Shane (Faizon Love) tries to rebound from a hurtful divorce by dating a 20-year-old bimbo named Trudy (Kali Hawk). Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) have trouble conceiving a child and feel their picture-perfect marriage crumbling. Being the perfectionists that they are, Jason and Cynthia wish to visit a tropical resort named Eden that helps troubled couples repair their relationships through the nurturing of an exotic location. They convince the other couples to join them on this vacation, for if they all go they get a great group discount.

The couples are soon whisked away to this island paradise and the place truly has a breathtaking appearance, with gorgeous beaches and island delights. The couples feel like they’re in paradise, that is until the couples’ skill-building activities begin and all smiles turn to deep frowns. Under the supervision of the French guru Marcel (Jean Reno), the couples participate in a relationship workshop that consists of group therapy, deep sea fishing, stripping, and risqué yoga. Instead of helping with their problems, these activities produce results that veer somewhere between embarrassment and frustration. It seems that these activities are causing the couples to crack beyond repair. Can the passions that were once there possibly be rekindled on this island?

To call Couples Retreat a lowbrow sitcom would be an insult to lowbrow sitcoms everywhere. The jokes are so flat and dead-on-arrival that it’s excruciating to sit through. The sight gags are extremely weak and go on much longer than absolutely necessary. Vaughn and Favreau, who co-wrote the screenplay with Dana Fox (What Happens in Vegas), usually have a strong gift for golden one-liners, but this time they give us nothing that stands out or is worth remembering. The dialogue curiously has a repetitive habit, over-establishing points that we’ve long since understood. Even Vaughn’s star presence, which is usually a haven of hilarious monologues and priceless comic energy, is mundane and ineffective this time. The only two moments I honestly enjoyed were a conversation about Applebee’s and a Guitar Hero competition between Dave and an island tour guide (Peter Serafinowicz).

Thirteen years ago, Vaughn and Favreau teamed up to brings us Swingers, one of the great comedies about the masculine mind. Under the slick indie eye of director Doug Liman, Favreau’s script and Vaughn’s comic antics gave us honest and hilarious insights into contemporary dating and male comradery in a way that no assembly-line Hollywood comedy could dream of doing. Swingers is a cult classic that is cherished not just for its invaluable humor but for illuminating masculine experiences in a way any guy can relate to. Couples Retreat is proof that Vaughn and Favreau have sold out to the big mean commercial machine, and it’s not a pretty sight. To start off with an indie film of fun-loving honesty and end up with a Hollywood comedy of shameless phoniness is truly heartbreaking. This duo should return to their gloves-off indie style of filmmaking, then maybe they could make a comedy that’s truly worth relishing.

As a producer, Vaughn has the right goals in mind but displays clunky and misguided executions of them. It appears that Vaughn wants to produce comedies that focus on the peculiarities of contemporary relationships in everyday situations. The only problem is that these comedies favor a formulaic, sitcom style as opposed to displays of bruising honesty. It’s not hard to see how The Break-Up, Four Christmases, or Couples Retreat wants to focus on the plights of normal people in the present and their relationships, but these films feel too silly and unrealistic to be relatable. If these films’ jokes were more observant and down-to-earth, it would truly be more involving. A comedy like (500) Days of Summer, for example, works so wonderfully because each and every one of its jokes are firmly rooted in honest observations of dating and breaking-up. If Couples Retreat treated its characters like real people and steered the humor away from sitcom territory towards true human behavior, it would’ve been spared from looking like commercial trash.

I can’t remember the last time I was so bored during a movie. I don’t mean having to sit through a bad movie, but being truly bored. Yawning. Constantly checking my watch. Waiting eagerly to go home. Almost frustrated for having blown ten bucks on such a waste of a movie. I’m usually such a big fan of Vince Vaughn’s works and I root for him all the time, but this is such an all-time low for him and his comrades. Watching Swingers and Made reminds me of the old days I yearn for and what I wish would happen again these days.

A Fun Ride Through 'Zombieland'

by Brett Parker

Even though Zombieland is supposed to be something of a tongue-in-cheek send-up of the Zombie genre, it’s probably one of the most entertaining Zombie films I’ve ever seen in general. While the laughs are undoubtedly big, the jolts are effective, the visuals are compelling, and the characters are surprisingly likeable. While most movies that take place across a Zombie landscape can be rather morbid and intense, this one is refreshingly likeable and witty. Here’s a movie that sidesteps the disgusting goofiness of the zombies and focuses on the humorous quirks of the humans combating them. This proves to be something of a masterstroke.

The film imagines a world overrun by zombies, the result from an outbreak of a mysterious virus. Nearly every square inch of America is in shambles as rabid Zombies roam the landscape, hunting for remaining humans they can snack on. A scarce amount of humans band together where they can to find some kind of refuge from the hordes of the undead. To avoid fatal emotional connections, a specific group of survivors nickname each other with their destination cities to keep relationships ambiguous. There’s Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a shy teenage loner, Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a bad-ass warrior Zombie hunter, Wichita (Emma Stone) a sexy con woman, and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), her tough-minded sister.

In spite of their conflicting personalities, the four decide to band together and roam the landscape for safety and resources. They raid random supermarkets and tourist traps, treating the country as their own personal playground. Wichita decides that an amusement park in California might be an adequate place to hold up against the Zombies. As they trek West, Columbus develops a huge crush on Wichita, Tallahassee begins to open-up amidst a mad quest for Twinkies, and the group has an uproariously hilarious encounter with a famous movie star.

Instead of pointing and laughing at the absurdities of the zombies themselves (like countless other spoofs have done), Zombieland seems more interested in pulling laughs from the survivalists and their post-apocalyptic daily life. The result is an inspired well of sharp humor. The film doesn’t really take self-reflexive jabs at the genre so much as settle into a peculiar character study of these quirky humans. Most of the film consists not of Zombie action, but the conversations and wacky episodes these survivors experience on their road journey. The funniest episode occurs when the group crashes the mansion of a real-life Hollywood star in a surprise cameo. I won’t reveal who it is, but his appearance, his survival techniques, and what ultimately happens to him is one of the funniest things I’ve seen this year and in any Zombie comedy ever made.

The likeability of this film is generated mostly by the appealing nature of the initial cast. Harrelson plays a wild riff on his breezy comic charms while making for a durable action figure in the process. Stone proves here, as she did in Superbad, that she holds more spunk than most cookie-cutter sex symbols and is truly to die for. Breslin greatly exemplifies here that she can rise above cute child roles and show depths of toughness. Eisenberg does a more resourceful play on his usual shy-guy neurotics and does what the role demands, but you kind of hope directors will give him more to do in his future. I hope he doesn’t get forced down the Jason Biggs’ path. And wait till you see the surprise cameo, his scenes are worth the price of admission alone!

The Zombie action, when it does occur, is skillfully handled and can honestly stand with most serious Zombie flicks. The Makeup Department really did their job in making the Zombies look effective and scary while first-time helmer Ruben Fleisher knows how to keep the action energetic and exciting. One creative touch he displays is playfully using title cards to illustrate Columbus’ personal rules for surviving a Zombie holocaust (Rule #1: Have Good Cardio, Rule #2: Double Tap Your Zombie Kills, etc.) These illustrated rules have a sneaky way of finding their way into a frame, and it makes the movie all the more fun to watch.

The most devoted horror enthusiasts can always find the deepest contemporary metaphors in even the cheesiest of Zombie flicks. I think in a sly, subtle way, Zombieland might be a delicate portrait of our stressful times. Perhaps the mess of the Zombie landscape is meant to reflect the mess of current times, in which economical problems, health care concerns, and unemployment anxieties are running as frantically as bloodthirsty Zombies. In this context, the human characters make us realize that even in the face of a collapsing society; we still face minute plights in our daily routines of survival. I find it interesting that even in the face of a crumbling world, these characters are still concerned with their own personal crisis, which consist of such matters as romantic crushes and intense food cravings. It’s not hard picturing ourselves behaving the same way in such a situation; perhaps we’re doing it right now.

When it comes to the Zombie genre, 28 Days Later is still the scariest and Shaun of the Dead is still the funniest, but I’m surprised by how effective and entertaining Zombieland turns out to be. It holds more laughs and intelligence than I initially expected. Don’t expect just another cheesy horror romp. If this film does one thing greatly, it makes you ponder this thought: in the face of a Zombie apocalypse, would Twinkies still be easy to obtain?