The haphazard ingestion of a burger ridden with mad cow disease quickly leads to an epidemic of mad people disease and then the inevitable zombie apocalypse. A rather pathetic little loser (Jesse Eisenberg) known only as Columbus (named after his home town) narrates the entire film as he attempts to make his way back home to his estranged family who live across the country. Columbus has managed to survive the zombie outbreak by staying alone; something he had done long before the zombies arrived. He also sticks to a rigid set of rules that assure his safety and survival. His rules include cardio, always checking the backseat, and perhaps most importantly – the “tap tap.” Never tap a zombie to see if it’s dead, just shoot it again.

Columbus eventually crosses paths and begins traveling with another survivor named Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson). Tallahassee is a purebred ass kicker with a undying love for Cadillacs and carnage. He also has a ravenous hunger for Twinkies, and often risks life and limb looking for the ever elusive Twinkie the Kid in abandoned stores that are crawling with zombies. Tallahassee is such a bad ass, he even brings along a banjo along just for the specific purpose of making a Deliverance joke and then using it to bash in a zombie’s skull!

One of Tallahassee’s Twinkie runs leads to a chance encounter with a pair of conniving sisters named Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). It doesn’t take long for the girls to dupe the fellas and get away with their car and weapons. The girls are on a quest to California, where a supposedly zombie-free amusement park called Adventureland awaits. Columbus and Tallahassee find a conveniently located Hummer full of machine guns (!) and go looking for Tallahassee’s beloved Escalade.

The rest of the flick follows the foursome as they trek across the country and have some fun along the way shooting guns, falling in love, killing zombies, destroying cherished symbols of Native American culture, and an unbelievably hysterical run in with the very top of the Hollywood A-list. Sometimes you have to enjoy the little things. Once the girls finally make their way into Adventureland they quickly discover that it isn’t quite as zombie free as they had hoped. It’s then up to the boys to nut up or shut up and Columbus has to break his rule about not being a hero. But will he ever get to brush the hair away from Wichita’s ear? And will Tallahassee ever find his Twinkie? Welcome to Zombieland folks…this place is really DEAD!

Talk about a pleasant surprise. I went into this one with fairly low expectations and wound up frigging loving it. ZOMBIELAND is one of the rare horror comedies that actually made me laugh out loud, and more than once. Some hardcore horror fans might be disappointed with this one because it is fairly soft in the horror department. I think this is definitely more of a comedy than a horror film, but it’s comedy about zombies – so horror fans with a sense of humor should dig it. I’m normally not a fan of zombie comedies but this one worked for me, big time.

First off, let’s start with the opening credits. We’re talking super slow motion zombie attacks and random violent deaths set to the tune of METALLICA “For Whom The Bell Tolls!” Needless to say, this is one of the fucking coolest credit sequences of all time. This opening instantly made me a fan of the film and it was going to have to work very hard at sucking to change my mind. Fortunately that never happened. My biggest fear with this one going in was Jesse Eisenberg’s character. Judging solely by the trailers I thought he was going to be an annoying character that seemed to be channeling the spirit of that little whiny kid from Superbad (I refuse to look up his name!). I also wasn’t crazy about his “rules of zombie survival” because I thought that premise had already been beaten to death. But much to my surprise, his character is actually very funny and his rules (which pop up on the screen as text) were one of the highlights of the film.

The biggest highlight of course is the incredible celebrity cameo that takes up a good chunk of the second act. Unlike a lot of other reviewers and random internet imbeciles (same thing really), I refuse to spoil your fun by telling you who the celebrity is. All I am going to say is that the way this cameo was handled is perfect. The lavish mansion, the cars, the portraits. All of these little details made the scene so damn funny! It also didn’t hurt that the picked THE coolest celebrity ever to do this. I couldn’t help but relate to the way Woody Harrelson gushes about the guy. Speaking of gushing, Emma Stone is looking pretty fucking hot in this movie! Am I the only one who thought she was Mila Kunis in the ads? Emma’s got the raccoon makeup going on which is sort of a turn off for me, but there’s a great scene where you get this awesome close up of her ass in a mini-skirt. She now joins the esteemed list of celebrity chicks whose farts I want to smell!

Now for a little negativity so you don’t think I’ve gone all soft on you. This is not a perfect flick by any means. It really seems like the writers came up with the idea of having a massive zombie shootout in an amusement park and then wrote a story just to make that scene happen. The premise is pretty damned thin to say the least. There’s no real reason why the girls would trek across country to this amusement park, and the logic gets even more strained once they get there. Woody Harrelson’s character is awesome, but who in the hell IS he? And where is he going? There’s also way too many plot conveniences along the way. I know the movie is supposed to be tounge in cheek, but the scene with the handy Hummer full of guns made me roll my eyes.

The biggest complaint (besides the fact that the zombies were running of course) I had was the fact that this zombie flick really needed more GUTS! There’s some nice stuff in the beginning, but it got tamer as it went and the comedy and romance takes over. I think I speak for a lot of splatter fans when I say I want to SEE the pruning shears hacking away at the zombie’s neck. I don’t want to see some cute closeup of Woody’s face and then the bloody shears on the floor. Hopefully the “unrated version you couldn’t see in theaters” will been more satisfying in that department.

That minor pissing and moaning aside, ZOMBIELAND is still an awesome flick. I’ll even go a step further and say this is one of the very best flicks I’ve seen all year, horror or otherwise. It stands out in a big way for being an original creation. This isn’t another tired remake or lame video game adaptation. It’s not shot with a fucking camcorder. (I am SO sick of that!) It also doesn’t fall into Romero’s tired mindset of attempting to shoehorn social/political commentary into a zombie flick. This is 90 minutes of pure entertainment, and (un)dead-heads should march to the theaters at once to see it.

KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!