Warm Bodies: The New Twilight?

If you are unaware of the movie Warm Bodies (or the book it was apparently based on, it’s always a book first) the story is basically a boy meets girl story. Except the boy is a zombie and the girl is living in a post apocalyptic society where the dead walk among us. On the surface it does seem very much like Twilight except using zombies instead of vampires (or sparkle-pires as I do not always consider Twilight vampires to be REAL vampires). Someone could easily assume that this movie is merely attempting to cash in on a popular trend. But is there more to it or is this just the same old song and dance?

I am beginning to write this blog entry before I have seen the film so I am going to take this opportunity to point out what is obviously the same between Warm Bodies and Twilight. Both films involve a supernatural individual involved with a normal human. Both films exist in a world where there are both good and bad versions of the supernatural creature in question (the Volturri in Twilight and the Bonies in Warm Bodies). Both films involve supernatural creatures who would feed on their respective mates were it not for the intervention of love.

The OG Twilight

Both movies also seem to involve a story told primarily from a first person perspective. This appears to be the one area where the two films actually differ because in the case of Warm Bodies the POV is from the monster and in Twilight the POV is from the human. Another similarity is that both films involve a male monster and a female human, which could simply be playing on the classic Beauty and the Beast tale. Like the Beast and Edward, R (the protagonist Zombie in the film) is not happy about his existence as a monster and has a longing for his lost humanity.

Zombie movie or CW show?

As I already examined in a previous entry (see here) movie monsters have become more and more sanitized in recent years. For a while it seemed like Zombies had escaped the fate that had befallen Vampires and Werewolves. Who would ever want to fall in love with a walking rotting corpse? But with the release of this film it seems all too clear that even the dead are being claimed by the Tween craze.  I can only imagine someone is pitching a romantic comedy involving either Mummies or Leprechauns to all the major studios right now (and if they’re not, I have a great idea and am ready to pitch).

Having now seen the film (the above entries written from trailers and guess work) I can gladly say that Warm Bodies is in no way the Zombie Twilight. First, the film has a sense of humor. It is a comedy. While there are the same long-winded lamentations about the protagonist’s existence, they are done with a tongue and cheek mockery. Many of the observations of the film are almost inside jokes known to any fan of zombie films and not just depressing whining about life as a monster. The main character even seems to have moments where they enjoy being a monster.

The second point that puts Warm Bodies above Twilight in my opinion is that there seems to be real chemistry between the romantic leads. Watching the Twilight films and reading the books I can find no reason for why Bella and Edward are attracted to each other. There is mention that Edward finds the scent of Bella’s blood particularly alluring, but that doesn’t seem like enough to develop into a romantic relationship. If anything that should just give him MORE motivation to just chow down on one of Bella’s veins. It's like falling in love with filet mignon. And Bella seems to only be interested in Edward because he initially avoids her. I am hardly an expert on relationships but there feels to me like there should be more. But no, it is simply stated that they are soul mates with further justification.

WTF?

Warm Bodies on the other hand seems like a more natural relationship progression. Or at least as natural as a relationship between a human and a corpse can be. Basically, and I’m not saying anything that isn’t in the trailers, R sees this human girl, Julie, while he and some buddy-zombies are out looking for food. Instantly he is smitten. Keeping her safe from the other zombies he slowly charms her into believing he is more than just a mindless killer (even though, <HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER> R did kill Julie’s former boyfriend and gets to know about her by eating his brain <END SPOILER>). It’s not the simple thrusting together of two characters like in Twilight. R has to earn the heart of Julie through his actions. Edward just had to be there for Bella to fall in love with him. And the less said about Jacob falling in love with Renesme, the better.

While I really dug Warm Bodies, there were a few little things about the film that bugged me. There was one major logic problem that annoyed me in that all the humanlike zombies shuffle around and move slowly while the more decayed and gone zombies, the Bonies, seem to be able to movie lightning quick. This seems to go against the accepted logic that fresh zombies move fast and older more rotted zombies move slow. If you can look past this single logic fallacy, you can easily enjoy the film.

Judging from the trailers I saw before this movie it seems like the monster love story is a genre that will not be dying off any time soon.  I have come to terms with this fact. I can only hope that as more such films are made they shall use the film Warm Bodies as the model and not Twilight. Ironic since it was Twilight that initially inspired this craze, and without it I never would have gotten to see Warm Bodies. There must be some sort of “Trash/Treasure” metaphor that I can use here.