It’s no secret that I love just about anything involving zombies. So when I first saw the trailer for Zombieland, I was stoked. It looked like it would have everything I could ever want in a zombie movie: shotguns, disgusting zombies, fire, and comedy.

Zombieland takes place in a post-apocalyptic US where we are introduced to Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), who is a bit of a wuss albeit a smart one with some great rules for surviving in Zombieland; and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), an ass-kicking zombie killer who is on a mission to get a Twinkie. Columbus and Tallahassee eventually run into Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) who they then have to decide if they want to trust and stick out the zombie apocalypse with or to go their separate ways.

WARNING: There may be spoilers below so DO NOT READ FURTHER if you don’t want to be spoiled!

You have been warned!

We first meet Columbus, who is also our narrator, as he tells us about some of the rules of surviving in Zombieland. These pop up in the film throughout the movie as 3D text (think the opening montage of Watchmen) that also becomes a part of the movie being splattered with blood, broken, or knocked over. This really adds to the all around nature of the movie, which overall has some perfect comedic timing. Comedy aside, Zombieland is also quite graphic with bone crunching, gut eating zombie goodness.

There is a backing story that explains how zombies came to be (Mad Cow evolved to infect humans),  the tale of a quiet teen who has to go into the real world once the zombies arrive, and of course some teenage romance. But the movie never lingers too much on these smaller details and you still see tons of zombie killing mixed in with some scenes that will leave you laughing. One of the best scenes takes place after the four make it to LA and decide to seek refuge in style at a mansion of Tallahassee’s choosing.  This leads to probably the best cameo apperance of an actor I’ve seen so far this year in a movie. I warned about spoilers but I can’t even spoil this part, it’s just too fantastic and you’ll probably be glad I didn’t mention it. Needless to say the whole theatre I was in erupted into cheers and applause the minute he appeared on the screen!

Now, this movie does have fast zombies. I’m normally a staunch believer that fast animated corpses = infected. Not zombies. But for some reason this didn’t bother me in Zombieland. Maybe it was the endearing way they growled and screamed, or the charming way that black goo dripped from their mouths, but these felt like good zombies for me. Granted there still may be those who will complain about how zombies aren’t supposed to be fast, but I say put that aside and at least check out the movie.

The acting is fantastic in the movie as well. I think that Eisenberg plays the awkward teen a lot better than Michael Cera, and Harrelson does not disappoint as Tallahassee. There are some great one liners that will come out of this movie as well. I know I’ve already used “Double Tap” a few times as well as the main tagline “Nut up or shut up!”

All in all I had a blast watching this movie, and I could tell that the rest of the people in the theatre did as well. Zombieland just seems to get everything right from the zombies, to the zombie killing to the comedy, everything just falls into place. It’s gory and violent and everything that a zombie movie should be. You’ll be cheering on the humans while wishing that you could go home and watch it again. I will for sure be seeing this movie again come opening night!

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