Movie zombies used to be unfortunate people, usually African Americans with outstretched arms, in the swamps, enthralled to the evil designs of voodoo priests and choking people. At least they were until Mathieson's 1954 novel, "I am Legend" (the basis of The Last Man in the World, The Omega Man and eponymous I am Legend), in which the "zombie apocalypse" concept started and, The Night of the Living Dead, which popularized the walking dead formula as we know it.
The latest installment is Warm Bodies, a film shot in Montreal and Paris, featuring actors mostly unknown in the US. Rob Corddry and John Malkovitch add some familiar faces, but are relatively lesser roles.
While I am tired of the genre, I really like this one. Most zombie movies have some small and shrinking group of human survivors, trying to hang on until SOMETHING happens to rescue them. You don't see the something in the movie because the situation never really ends; it just reaches a temporary stopping point. In this one, zombies might just not be a lost cause. Can be rehabilitated and brought back to normal life? Will some remnant of humanity survive? All the answers are in this movie. I've gotten pretty tired of zombies, but this had a good turn of plot, decent acting and a good variation on the standard plot. The audience actually applauded at the end. It really is pretty good.
