No Pulse, No Problem: Quirky Zombie Movies

Warm Bodies is a zombie/young adult/romance, which doesn’t seem like a genre blend that should work, but somehow it does. It’s not the first flick to blend genres in non-traditional ways, however. Sure, Shaun of the Dead is probably the most well-known zombified genre smash, blending the undead with a romantic comedy, but there are several lesser-known films which utilize the walking dead to tell stories that are a bit more unexpected.

Fido

If you’ve ever played any of the Fallout games, Fido‘s aesthetic and setting will be immediately familiar to you: 1950’s Americana. In a world recovering from a near-zombie apocalypse, people now sell zombies as housepets/servants. The Robinson family buys one such deadhead, and their boy Timmy immediately takes a shining to the creature and names him Fido. What follows is a blend of horror and comedy, told through the story formula of a children’s movie. Kid finds life-changing supernatural thing, which is typically a robot or an alien, but, in this case, it’s a zombie. Kid befriends it and the two beings bond. Eventually, the thing becomes a lot of trouble. Boy and thing are almost separated, but, in the end, their bond endures. Fido is strangely feel-good despite of the numerous character casualties and macabre tone.

Wasting Away (Aah! Zombies)

While the undead are a pretty common enemy in media these days, it’s not often that we get to see life (or un-life, as it were) from their perspective. In Wasting Away, the zombies are the heroes… and they don’t know they’re zombies. The infected characters see non-zombies as sped-up, and can’t understand why they react to them with such horror. There’s a blend of sharp writing and clever trope-twisting at work here, all wrapped up with some smart cinematic techniques, such as the zombies’ perspective being in color, but the humans’ perspective in black and white reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead.

Dead Alive (Braindead)

Watching this film, it’s hard to believe that it was directed by the same filmmaker who has helmed the cinematic versions of Tolkiens’ Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit. Dead Alive is a slapstick horror that would fit right at home on the resume of Sam Raimi. Even the non-horror scenes maintain this level of peculiarity to them, which helps keep these comparatively mundane scenes memorable. Be forewarned, however: most of Dead Alive is disgusting. Few flicks can match the sheer grotesque carnage to be found in this Kiwi zom-com. People get the skin peeled from their faces, zombies get diced up by lawnmowers, and there’s a Three Stooges-esque comedy of errors in a funeral home that has to be seen to be believed. It’s wild, it’s creative, and it’s certainly never dull, but Dead Alive is one movie not to be watched on a full stomach.