Review of Warm Bodies (2013)
Seen in 2017.
R(omeo) hooks up with Julie(t), whose father is so strict that he put her in house arrest for a year over stealing peach schnaps. He doesn’t approve of their relationship. Such an a-hole, that guy. Like, seriously.
Romantic comedy and viral zombie post-apocalypse. Crucial improvements over Twilight (2008). Most importantly, there is a little bit of worldbuilding going on. The “bonies” or “skeletons” are second-stage zombies who’ve forfeited their humanity, losing their clothes, skin and eyes, becoming grey, sexless, restless and mildly superpowered. These creatures are apparently both immune to and opposed to the rekindling of human functions which happens in first-stage zombies. This opposition seems to imply that there is a life cycle at work, with the virus gradually transforming people into the alien species, though how this relates to the power of love and the transfer of memories by eating the brain is anything but clear. It’s not as clever as Monster Island (2004). In the end, the protagonist says only that the bonies were “too far gone to change” and died out of their own accord, contradicting the SF implication. It’s weak, but it beats In the Flesh (2013).
John Malkovich does a poor job as the military anti-zombie zealot father, a ridiculous role. Rob Corddry is well cast and finds the appropriate level of humour that Malkovich misses.
References here: Daybreak (2019).