Wonkette Movie Night: Warm Bodies

'I am dead, but it’s not so bad. I’ve learned to live with it.'

Zombies have a few nicknames — the undead, the infected, the walking dead, corpses —and Warm Bodies adds a new one: Boneys. It’s the way the zombies distinguish themselves from those corpses around them who have lost all of their humanity. Warm Bodies starts with R giving an inner monologue explaining his life as one of the undead. The fact that he even has an inner monologue lets you know this isn’t going to be the typical rotting flesh, mindless monsters type of zombie flick.

It’s one of the many zombie films that inject something different, from humor to romance to music like the fun Christmas themed zombie musical, Anna And The Apocalypse (2017). Over time the zombie genre has gone in every direction possible and has even moved into the once taboo subject of undead kids with films like Cooties (2014) or Little Monsters (2019). But one theme that is a constant in this genre is the question of what makes us human. Is it the body we reside in or the life that resides within that shell?

Warm Bodies is based on the novel of the same name from Isaac Marion (Wonkette commission link). It is the first in a series of three books including The Burning World and The Living, with a prequel, The New Hunger. It shifts the focus to empathy for the zombies, treating them more as people with an illness that need help and not a bullet to the head. It still has its monsters, the ones described by R as the zombies who have given up and given in to cannibalistic hunger. The Boneys. There’s also the non-zombified humans. Some of them may also be monsters.

An undead Romeo (R) and a living Juliet (Julie) in a twisted retelling of the classic love story. Except the whole dead/alive thing gets really confusing. Against an apocalyptical backdrop can love conquer all and save the world from those who have lost all of their humanity?

Warm Bodies stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, Lio Tipton, Rob Corddry, and Dave Franco.

Warm Bodies is available with subscription on Peacock. $3.99 in the usual places.

To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules, go to WonkMovie.

Tonight’s animated short is Cat and Moth by India Barnardo from 2023.

Join me tomorrow on ziggy’s stack for Series Sundays, watching Firefly episode 8.