Why Zomedy?
First, the word itself is portmanteau. Portmanteau is a little suitcase. It’s also a two words crammed together to make a new word. Zomedy is “Zombie” jammed together with “Comedy”.
By itself, the thought of a Zombie Comedy humors me. It reminds me of my childhood, when my pops took my friend Aaron and I to Major Video (which later became BlockBuster). Dad told us we could rent any movie we wanted. Aaron and I probably wandered aimlessly through the store until Dad gently prodded us to pick a movie. We grabbed two: “The Stuff” and “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”.
Movies - Zombie Comedies
Zomedies - The Zombie Comedy
Zombieland - I only list this one first because it's the most recent I've seen. It's funny and has great characters in it. Woody Harrelson is cool, warm, cold and somewhat creepy (not Natural Born Killers/Wag the Dog creepy, but enough). Jesse Eisenberg
has an awesome list. Bill Murray is simply fantastic.
Shaun of the Dead - Simply brilliant movie starring Simon Peg. What I like is how it pays homage to so many zombie movies of the past. It pretty religiously follows the zombie rules... and it has a battle scene choreographed to Queen.
Dead Alive - Still, the undisputed king of the Zombie comedy in my heart. It's older. It's subtler. It's gross. It's the bloodiest movie I could ever imagine. The zombie baby in the park scene? "I kick ass for the lord", "Your mother ate my dog", "It's time for some devine intervention". I've owned this movie several times... it's a must have for your collection.
Army of Darkness - Shop Smart. Shop S - Mart. Bruce Campbell is the king. Well, technically he did play the king in another movie, Bubba Ho-Tep, but we're not here to talk about that... We're here to talk about the man who rightfully earned a life time achievement for Zombie Slaying, Ash. Here, he's sent to medeval times to retreive the book of the dead, kill the baddies, save the girl, and attach a chainsaw to his arm. How can you beat that? With a boom stick, that's how.
Evil Dead II Ya, ya, I know... I already have Army of Darkness here. And Evil Dead II is a horror movie, not a comedy. I disagree... it's a dark comedy. The quick recap at the beginning was a brilliant reminder of the good parts of Evil Dead... Ash fighting with himself. You have to respect this flick
Other Zombie Comedies:
- Weekend at Bernies II *Weekend at Bernies was not, but II was
- Death Becomes Her
- The Return of the Living Dead
- Idle Hands (kind of...)
- My Boyfriend's Back