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The zombie comedy[1][2][3] is a film genre which aims to blend zombie or horror motifs with slapstick comedy as well as dark comedy.
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Background
The earliest roots of the genre can be found in Jean Yarbrough's King of the Zombies (1941) and Gordon Douglas's Zombies on Broadway (1945), though both of these films dealt with Haitian-style zombies. An American Werewolf in London (1981)[4] and the Return of the Living Dead series (1985)[5] (especially the first two and the last of the series) can be considered some of the earliest examples of Zombie-comedy using the classic zombie.
Modern examples
Modern zombie comedies include Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead[6] (which was in fact a self-dubbed Romantic Zombie Comedy, or RomZomCom).[7] This movie made many in-jokes and references to George A. Romero's earlier Dead films. In particular, the plot of Shaun relates directly to the plots of Romero's zombie films — all of which involve several people trapped in a building, with flesh-eating zombies attempting to break in to devour them, without a direct explanation for the cause of the zombie plague. The title Shaun of the Dead is also both an obvious parody of and homage to the title Dawn of the Dead. Numerous lines, scenes and background details also directly refer to the Romero films, including the music playing over the Universal logo, which is the synthesizer soundtrack to Dawn of the Dead. The film also features a Kid Koala remix of "The Gonk," which was used over the closing credits of Dawn of the Dead. Furthermore, like the Romero movies, the living dead are never directly referred to as "zombies", though it was done in a humorous way in the SOTD film.
Andrew Currie's Fido,[8] Matthew Leutwyler's Dead & Breakfast, Dead Snow, and Peter Jackson's Braindead, are also good examples of zombie comedies.[9] Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II, although a horror film, contains some light hearted and dark comedy elements, and its sequel, Army of Darkness, is even more comedic. The Evil Dead series does however not feature any traditional style zombies.
Other films that could be considered zombie comedies include the 1986 film Redneck Zombies, 1993's My Boyfriend's Back, 1986's Night of the Creeps, 1998's Bio Zombie, 1999's Idle Hands, starring Devon Sawa and Seth Green, 2005's Tokyo Zombie, 2005's Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, 2008's Dance of the Dead and 2009's Zombieland and Zombie Dearest.
See also
References
- ^ Night of the Living Dorks (review)". Cinema Blend. Retrieved April 9, 2007.
- ^ Bemenderfer, Mark (October 12, 2004). "Zombie Comedy Succeeds In Both Genres". The Observer Online. Retrieved on April 9, 2007.
- ^ Gartside, Will (September 30, 2004). "Zombie Comedy Slays Audiences". The Badger Herald. Retrieved on April 9, 2007.
- ^ Nelson, Resa (2004). "Science Fiction Weekly Interview". SciFi Weekly, Issue 388, paragraph 4. Retrieved April 9, 2007.
- ^ Dellamorte (January 22, 2003). Return of the Living Dead. Classic Horror Review. Retrieved April 9, 2007.
- ^ Edelstein, David (September 23, 2004). "The Importance of Being Undead: A Zombie Comedy of Manners". Slate Magazine. Retrieved April 9, 2007.
- ^ Smith, Kerry L. (2004-09-22). "Shaun Of The Dead: The World's First Rom-Zom-Com (Romantic Zombie Comedy)?". MTV News. http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1491298/09222004/story.jhtml. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
- ^ Capt. Xerox (March 16, 2007). "Critics Love the New Zombie Comedy Fido". The Website @ The End Of The Universe. Retrieved April 9, 2007.
- ^ Frazer, Bryant. Braindead (review). Deep Focus. Retrieved April 9, 2007.
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