Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies:

I was bathing when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes too fast. Apologies, I was watching a documentary about Prince the other day on BBC iPlayer and always fancied paraphrasing one of his lyrics. Although I did actually start writing this while I was in the bath. (Yes, I take a notebook everywhere. No, I'm not a Luddite. I simply can't afford one of those posh, electronic doohickeys to write on.)

Anyway, I digress.

From time to time I take a disabled friend of mine to the pictures (movies). He's in a wheelchair and needs someone with him in case of fire, accident, kidnapping by aliens, whatever. Before you start thinking 'Aw, what a sweet guy Sean is.' I have an ulterior motive. He pays for my ticket. Upside to that is I get to go see the latest movies. Downside, I have to watch whatever he wants to watch. Most of the time that's not a problem as we have very similar tastes when it comes to film, though now and again I have to sit through something I wouldn't have willingly watched otherwise. Don't hate me, but anything by Peter Jackson looks sumptuous, has great actors and production values, but someone on his film crew needs to tell him what the rest of us (if we're honest) all know. Your films are too bloody long, Mr. Jackson. Some judicious cutting and they would rock.

Now where was I? Ah yes, Davey, the gentleman in the wheelchair, and I had both seen a trailer for a film called 'Warm Bodies'. He found it first then shared it with me. I'm working on the script for a very Anglo-centric zombie film, so it's not odd that he would send me the link. I thought the trailer was brilliant. The male lead in it, Nicholas Hoult, is a zombie and the narrator. When we had gotten to the pictures, I had a sinking feeling when I saw it was rated only 12a, i.e. suitable for people 12 and older or younger than 12 if accompanied by an adult. I was also put off by it being described as a romantic comedy. As I rule I normally run a mile from things described as a romantic anything. Now I'm going to say something and I need you to read the whole sentence first before losing it and missing the rest of this post.

Brace yourself, here goes:

'Warm Bodies' does for zombies, what 'Twilight' did for vampires BUT, and it's a big but, in a good way.

The premise of the movie is, at some point a plague overtakes mankind (it deliberately doesn't say what exactly), and people start turning into zombies. As the infection spreads, more and more people get infected. The survivors end up banding together to fight off the undead horde and to protect the last remaining human enclaves. Pretty standard zombie movie fare so far. The difference with 'Warm Bodies' is that a) the zombies can think and b) after a certain point the zombies degenerate into something else. I don't want to give too much away as that would spoil it.

A quick anecdote if I may. Aged 15 my oldest son, Jack, who has Aspergers, was given the choice of seeing the first 'Twilight' movie or the first 'G.I. Joe' movie. Using the logic its got vampires in it, it'll be cool, and not knowing any better, he picked 'Twilight'. He, my youngest son and I entered the darkened theatre, to find the place packed with whispering, teenage girls. As you can imagine this set warning bells going off in my head. I leaned over to Jack and whispered 'Jack son, its a chick flick', (Not very pc I know.), 'Nah Dad, its got vampires in it', he replied. Slowly the lights in the auditorium dimmed and the big, beautiful, silver screen flickered to life. Within the first couple of minutes all of the little teeny-boppers were oohing and aahing, giggles and whispering erupted all around us. Jack straight faced and at the top of his voice looked at me as if he was in physical pain and said, 'Dad, it's a chick flick!' Not bursting out laughing at this point was one of the hardest things I've ever done. We did stay until the end but it was slow torture and not unsurprisingly we didn't put ourselves through any of the sequels.

Right. Back to 'Warm Bodies'. Apparently someone, somewhere, some when, said there was only seven basic plots; I thought it was Cecil B. DeMille but a quick google search didn't leave me any the wiser. 'Warm Bodies' can be summed up as Boy meets Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy wins Girl back. I would describe it loosely as Romeo, (The zombie is called 'R'), and Juliet, (The girl, played by Teresa Palmer, is called 'Julie'). Its a warm (Zombies don't eat the dead), sweet (There must be some reason they always go for the brains), genuinely funny (No belly laughs, that could quite a mess in this genre of movie), quirky, love story.

As a zombie movie its not great, there's some plot holes you can drive a truck through and its a little slow in places. Mind you, when I said that to Davey during our post-mortem chat about it he did ask, 'What did you expect from a zombie movie?'. Smart arse! But it appealed to my gothic sensibilities. Had I my own Julie, I would definitely take them to see it and I'm waiting for it to come out on dvd over here so I can snaffle it for my collection of the weird.

I found it to be a fresh take on the standard zombie template. I would tell you how it achieves that but I don't want to spoil it for you.

That is all......