Warm Bodies

Mia Zanzucchi

Warm Bodies (or, Nicholas Hoult: Never Blinking, Always Pale) is a zombie thriller/romance/comedy that somehow manages to form a cohesive movie. In an apocalyptic America overrun by zombies, we meet R (Nicholas Hoult, X-Men: First Class), an undead corpse that hoards obsessively in an abandoned airport. R is an exception to all the zombie stereotypes. Except for the being undead, the eating people, and of course, the weird walking.

Enter Julie (Teresa Palmer, I Am Number Four), part of a human team sent past the huge concrete wall surrounding what’s left of the human race to retrieve medicine from an abandoned pharmacy. It’s there that R and Julie cross paths. R feels an instant connection with her, or as much of one as a grunting zombie can have. Soon, they find themselves caught in the middle of a battle between humans, the almost-alive-again-undead, and ruthless creatures known as “Bonies” who were once corpses, who were once humans.

This bizarre mix of romantic comedy and apocalyptic thriller is brilliantly hilarious, mushy gushy when it should be, and packed full of action. Nicholas Hoult is the perfect zombie. His vow to never blink sounds terribly difficult, but made for a killer zombie. Based on the book of the same name by Isaac Marion, it’s no doubt the best (granted, it’s the only) zombie movie I’ve ever seen.