I Love "Zombieland" -- Does this Make Me a Bad Person?

I knew I was going to like Zombieland.  It had, basically, everything going for it.  First, it features zombies, and zombies are cool.  Second, it was a comedy, and I love comedies.  Third, it was going to be violent, and I'd much rather watch things blow up than watch people sit around, sip wine, and talk about their lives.  And finally, it had Woody Harrelson playing a wisecracking hayseed thug, and that's the role he was born to play.  The movie did not disappoint. 

It was the little things, really.  Like the moment when Harrelson walks into an abandoned convenience store, banjo in hand, and plucks out the first few bars of “Dueling Banjos."  This of course draws from the back of the store an overall-wearing redneck zombie, who is promptly dispatched with . . . the banjo.  That’s good filmmaking right there.

But seriously (and there is a “but seriously”), if there is one thing I love about lowbrow cinema is that it may be rude, it may be crude, and it may feature vomiting zombies, but it almost always features — indeed, depends on — a certain level of selfless sacrifice by the primary characters.  There’s no nihilism here, folks.  In Zombieland, the timid college-age guy at the center of the movie only lives by following a series of “rules,” which float across the screen at appropriate times.  We’re taught, for example, that “Rule 1” is “cardio” as an overweight man is slowly overtaken by a ravenous zombie.  Another rule is “double tap” as we see a hapless victim make the mistake of only shooting a zombie once. 

Our hero NEVER breaks the rules . . . until he does.  And I won’t spoil the movie by telling which rule he breaks, but let’s just say that it sometimes takes a horde of undead to affirm the value of life, love, and a de facto family.