Film Review: WARM BODIES (2013)

 WARM BODIES (2013) USA/Canada 1hr 38mins

Director: Jonathan Levine.

"What's wrong with me? I just want to connect. Why can't I connect with people?" - R

"They are not becoming vegans!" - Grigio

"Don't be creepy, don't be creepy, don't be creepy." - R

Sweet zombie Jesus! If the world wasn't saturated enough with an endless supply of dodgy horror movies we also have to deal with the fact that Hollywood insists on sexualising every genre there is. No genre is safe and here we have a movie that would go on to spur on a spate of cringe worthy Rom Zom movies. Aimed at teens desperate for an undead heart throb to swoon over in the aftermath of the TWLIGHT movies I guess. WARM BODIES was originally a novel by Isaac Marion published in 2010 and is a romantic comedy based on Shakespeares' Romeo & Juliet but with a modern zombie twist. Adapted for film in 2013 and directed by Jonathan Levine, it features some young, up and coming actors and a familiar face for us oldies. It annoyingly lends itself well to screen and was undoubtedly well received as a family friendly teen zombie movie.

It has been eight years since the zombie virus struck and most of the worlds population are walking corpses yet there are pockets of survivors protected from the worst of it behind great walled communities. R (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie who spends his time with a horde of other zombies wandering around an airport. The story begins as a narrative from R's point of view, his thoughts guide us through the outbreak so far and how lonely life is when you're a zombie. Whilst on the hunt for food in the city, R and his group of zombies stumble across some living humans raiding a pharmacy. Whilst killing and eating most of the group, R notices that one of the humans is a pretty girl. After attacking, killing and eating the brain of this girls boyfriend, Perry (Dave Franco), R gains Perry's memories of Julie (Theresa Palmer) which makes him like her even more and he ends up saving her from the rest of the zombies in his group and takes her back to his home at the airport. R is a bit different to the other zombies and manages to choke out a few words to convince Julie to stay for a few days until the others "forget"she was ever there and can go home. Over the next few days R and Julie get to know each other and Julie begins to learn that not all zombies are inherently bad and there is another more sinister enemy out there. When a zombie really gives up hope they become another form of zombie called Bonies, these skeletal monsters prey on anything with a heartbeat and they know that a human is nearby. Julie and R's bizarre romance stirs things up within the zombie community who begin to have memories of their past lives and start to dream, this causes a reaction within them that starts their hearts beating again. R and Julie manage to escape from the airport and Julie gets back home. However, the Bonies mobilise and set out to overrun the survivors. Having escaped the Bonies themselves R and his horde of zombies set out to warn the humans of impending doom.

A family friendly Rom Zom Com like this is wholly unnecessary in my opinion and I do not take kindly to a genre I truly love for its panic inducing terror and general goriness being given the "Twlight" treatment and romanticised in such an awful saccharine way but I'm going to try and balance this review out as best I can without ripping it to complete shreds straight away!!

So lets start with its good points. It is really well acted. Nicholas Hoult has gone on to do great things, presumably off of the back of acting in WARM BODIES (2013) maybe?! His talent as a zombie poster boy is annoying because he is a good looking chap and is also pretty bloody good at acting like a zombie. His shuffling about, facial expressions (as well as his lack of expression at times) along with his teenage shrug is top notch and the narrative going through his head is actually quite humourous, you do start to feel a connection to him. Theresa Palmer as Julie is also pretty good at gaining a good measure of sympathy and likeability. Rob Corddry plays a great supporting role as R's best friend (yes apparently zombies have besties) M and John Malkovich as Julies father Grigio who is probably just there so someone could go "Hey look, its John Malkovich!" is also quite fun in an angry, shouty way! WARM BODIES (2013) was made on a bigger budget and they spent wisely when it came to the FX. Visually the zombies look fantastic. I love the attention to detail right down to their costumes. Most of the zombies costumes are drab, dull and grey whereas R is slightly more colourful in his red hoody. The pallor of their skin is spot on, I love the vein detail in their neck and the different tones used to show where the decomposition is creeping from. Pay particular attention to their ears, eyes and lips to see the different layers and colours. The Bonies are all CGI and are basically just skeletons with muscles, mummified skin and faces devoid of all main features that made them look human, they are actually kind of cool. Watching a zombie rip off its own skin and turn into a Boney was intriguing but they never lingered long on this transformation. This is where my enthusiasm for WARM BODIES (2013) starts to drop and we move onto the things that really grind my gears about this movie!

I think the fact that the words "family friendly' movie instinctively makes me cross because zombies are not family friendly. When I think of acceptable family friendly zombie content I think of stuff like episodes of Scooby Doo and other cartoons,  PARANORMAN (2012), CORPSE BRIDE (2005),  Marvel zombies and video games like Plants Vs Zombies, hell, maybe even some of the Hammer Horror movies. The kind of stuff that is is not overly scary but is fun and still holds true to what we know zombies to be. I resent the idea that zombies can be attractive and can fall in love. This is taking things too far in my opinion. As I said earlier it's the "Twlight" factor that seems to think they have to make every thing "sexy" that I dislike. Zombie movies have always been heartbreaking and traumatic with their own human romantic stories of love and loss to deal with. For example how do you get around the awkward connotations of forbidden love between the living and the dead? Surely this is not something Hollywood would approve of?  Of course they don't... so how do they get around this? Well, they get some attractive looking main actors and still make them look pretty when they're supposed to be dead so we would all still go there if the chance arose and then make their hearts start beating again before the inevitable kiss and everybody lives happily ever after! For me, one of the main attractions of zombie movies is that there is rarely a happy ending and even though cures are often mentioned it nearly always ends in disaster. This is why movies by Romero, Fulci and much later on stuff like THE WALKING DEAD is so popular. WARM BODIES (2013) completely destroys this.

As I have said, I do really like the way the zombies look and move in WARM BODIES (2013) however there is also a lot about them, R in particular, that I have big problems with. There is the age old argument in the zombie community of should we accept running and rage virus infected as zombies? I will take either of these choices over some of the things these "zombies" do in WARM BODIES (2013). This is completely my opinion of what zombies shouldn't do but for me zombies do not; open doors with ease, live on planes, collect things, have a best friend, play records, string coherent sentences together, care about their appearance, take photographs, erm, fall in love, drive a car and one more thing... start their own heart beat and become human again!!!!!! It may be clear to you (if you are still reading) that I am not really of a romantic persuasion and that I find matters of the heart a bit more complex than thinking the world revolves around being in love. Maybe deep down the whole zombie concept here is just a metaphor for depression? In that case then if all it takes to become happy and human is to make a hot chick fall in love with you, then this is one of the most small minded and narcissistic plots I have ever come across and I resent my beloved genre being hijacked in this way! Another of my bug bares with the zombies is the fact that they use the same trick often done in THE WALKING DEAD to disguise a human presence from the undead. Only instead of disembowling putrid rotten zombie corpses and covering themselves in said remains to hide their smell it just takes a small smear of zombie blood on Julies cheek to confuse and trick the horde into thinking she is one of them. As it does carry a 12 certificate in the UK it is glaringly obvious that blood and gore is not going to be plentiful and it really is not. It's actually quite tastefully done but it does leave you with the feeling that something is lacking, there are a few shots of some flying human organs, no visual human consumption and some well placed blood splashes which lets you know you are in the presence of flesh eating ghouls but I'm saddened by the fact that human flesh is not top of their list of priorities. The idea that the zombies get their victims memories and knowledge by eating their brain was later taken on by the tv series iZOMBIE (2015-2019) to much better effect. I have plenty of issues with this series as well but I have to admit this twist lends itself better to solving crimes than creeping on girls. 

In short I think it is safe to say I dislike WARM BODIES (2013) mostly for it's awful romanticised ideas about zombies. The movie itself is actually not that bad, they've thought alot about how it looks and for once I cannot complain about a lack of zombie action because there are some great horde moments and almost every scene has a zombie in it. I was dragged to see this in the cinema when it first came out and the people I went with absolutely loved it... I on the other hand was left feeling angry, confused and embarrassed to be seen going to watch it.  I had hoped that in my old age I would have mellowed out a bit almost 10 years on from its release,  on my rewatch for the purpose of this review and warmed up to it. Going by everything I have since written about it this is not the case and I think it is safe to say this is not a movie I will ever be watching again... twice is two times too many!  I guess it could be a potential gateway movie for the younger generation that might be interested in what more the genre has to offer and hopefully they will not be swayed by this into thinking this is what they are all like. In light of all of this I score WARM BODIES (2013) 2 brains out of 5, that is one brain for the acting and one brain for the sheer amount of zombies.

For those of you that might be interested WARM BODIES (2013) is available on DVD, Blu ray and is currently streaming on Netflix in the UK until the end of March.