Teen zombie romance? Sure, why not, right? As long as it’s nothing like Twilight, we’re in good shape, and thankfully the upcoming comedy Warm Bodies isn’t anywhere near that teen vampire romance that’s finally over and done with.
Variety has called Warm Bodies, “An inspired mashup of zombie heart and romantic-comedy brains.” A zombie rom-com? Tell me more. Well, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, “This character-driven genre meld could have use more edge and energy, and less obvious message-mongering, but it scores in terms of atmosphere, humor and charm.”
Warm Bodies is indeed based on a young-adult novel, and it’s about a teen zombie who falls in love with a girl he saves from an undead attack. One review compared it to Romero and Juliet, where a living person is having a forbidden love affair, and try to imagine having an affair with a zombie when they’re the reason most of mankind has been wiped out.
The director of Warm Bodies, Jonathan Levine, said that the film has more in common with John Hughes than Twilight, and as he told Movieline, “I basically replaced Michael Anthony Hall with a zombie.” Once again, zombies are also proving a great blank slate / metaphor that you can project so many different ideas onto.
Issac Marion, the author of the Warm Bodies novel, told Bloody Disgusting, “There’s a lot of different allegories in it. There are some central themes, but the subject is pretty ripe for things to explore.” He didn’t have Romeo and Juliet in mind when writing the novel, “but after I figured out the story and started to write it, I noticed that arc was there. The archetypal star-crossed romance was going on. But it’s more of a winking inside joke to the reader.”
So even though we’ve got more zombies than we know what to do with these days, is there room for one more that could also make a unique romantic comedy? We’re all for it.
