‘Warm Bodies’ brings to life zombie flicks

By Beth Schumacher

I am not a zombie fan. The thought of a zombie apocalypse scares me and yes, I do have an escape plan.

However, the latest zombie movie, “Warm Bodies,” had me laughing from start to finish.

The novel’s author, Isaac Marion, and director Jonathan Levine did a wonderful job of spicing up the exhausted fantasy romance genre.

R (Nicholas Hoult) an inner-conflicted zombie, believes he is one of the only zombies who still has the ability to think about more than just eating humans. His life-after-death is spent shuffling around a zombie-infested airport, trying to make connections with the others who are infected.

On the other side, the surviving humans have literally put up a wall around a city to protect themselves from infection. A group of young human “soldiers” is sent out to retrieve supplies from the other side. Go figure, the group includes Julie (Teresa Palmer), who happens to be the daughter of head honcho, Grigio (John Malkovich).

Things take a sharp turn when the group has a run-in with a zombie attack. R ends up eating Julie’s long-time boyfriend, Perry (Dave Franco). R then explains that when he eats someone’s brain, he gets visions of their life; he compares it to dreaming.

Minus the whole brain-eating factor, I thought the film provided an extremely clever way of humanizing the zombie perspective.

The visions R gets from Perry’s brain obviously have Julie in it, and R instantly feels the desire to protect her.

After spending days with R, Julie learns that he has the ability to talk and think for himself and realizes he, along with the rest of the zombies, have the potential to be cured.

The remainder of the movie is R and Julie’s journey, fighting against all odds, to conjoin their worlds and justify their relationship.

Although, this movie may seem very similar to the Twilight saga–the type of story where the girl falls in love with the undead–it’s worth a trip to the theaters.

There’s quick-witted lines scattered throughout the entire film, masking any awkwardness you may feel about rooting for and laughing at things that eat people. I feel confident that, if the movie was this good, investing in a copy of Marion’s book will be a worthwhile purchase.