Warm Bodies - DVD

Film: Zombies are currently fully in trend. Not least due to the great success of the series The Walking Dead, the zombie apocalypse in various incarnations is currently extremely popular. However, the focus is usually on a few survivors who have to take on a superior force of undead driven by their hunger for human flesh. It's always the poor people the audience is supposed to feel sorry for. But why doesn't anyone ever think about the zombies? A slowly rotting undead doesn't have it easy either. Luckily there is Jonathan Levine (50/50 - Friends for life), who finally approaches the subject from the perspective of a zombie in Warm Bodies.

The humorous adaptation of the novel of the same name by Isaac Marion focuses on the zombie R (Nicholas Hoult), who spends his everyday life as an undead in an airport building. Only to forage for food do R and his fellow zombies leave their deserted home, hoping to find fresh human brains somewhere out there in the post-apocalyptic world. When they eat it, it not only fills them with renewed strength and satisfies their hunger. They also absorb the memories of their victims. This is what happens when R feasts on the brain of young Perry (Dave Franco). All at once he feels a deep affection for the attractive Julie (Teresa Palmer), who is also in the group that R and the other zombies have attacked. Without further ado, R rescues the girl and hides her in his secret sanctuary, a decommissioned Boeing 747. And there the unbelievable happens: during the days in which Julie is hidden by R from the other zombies, a kind of friendship develops between the two, as Julie realizes that her undead savior is much more than just a soulless monster. And R senses changes, too, as his guttural grunts turn more and more into intelligible words. Could it really be that Julie is making him more human again? And how will she react when she learns that R has eaten her ex-boyfriend?

Warm Bodies isn't really a horror film, but an amusing variation on the classic Romeo & Juliet motif - only with zombies. Levine largely eschews blood and gore effects in favor of humor, charm, and highly original ideas. When R comments on his zombie existence and all the inconveniences it entails in a wonderfully frustrated off-screen manner, it makes for some extremely good laughs, especially at the beginning. But also the amusing play with some worn out genre clichés and the wonderfully coordinated use of 80s rock songs makes the film quite a pleasure to watch. Levine rarely goes for big laughs, but relies more on restrained gags and the charming-amusing mood, which works much better than a non-stop gag-fireworks.

Next to the original script, the film also convinces with its set and the simple, but good effects. And the good actors then also finally ensure that the in itself completely absurd story works so well. Especially Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy, X-Men: First Decision) manages perfectly to fill his undead character with life in such a way that, despite his deadly hunger for brains, the audience's sympathy is guaranteed from the very first moment. How easily this unusual romance could have seemed ridiculous or the finale unbearably cheesy. But because the script, the staging and the play of the performance mesh perfectly and always hit the right note, Warm Bodies has not become a bad joke, but a really good film.

Telling the story from the point of view of a zombie is admittedly not a new idea. For example, the horror-comedy Wasting Away - Zombies are only human, too, was already presented from this unusual perspective. Nevertheless, Jonathan Levine's romantic zombie comedy is an extremely original, charming, funny and simply beautiful work that all fans of unusual genre works should not miss. Absolutely worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The image of the DVD is absolutely clean, image distortions or smudges are not discernible. Instead, there's decent image sharpness, with only a few minor drops in detail quality in the darker scenes. The color scheme is cohesive and atmospherically rendered. The German audio is presented in a decent Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that not only delivers dialogue powerfully and with good intelligibility, but also provides plenty of movement on the surround channels with some well-executed sound effects, especially in the final third. Good!

Extras: Here, too, the DVD can fully convince. Almost two hours of extras, as well as an audio commentary are offered to the viewer here. Almost all extras are also provided with optional subtitles. Only the good-humoured and informative commentary by Levine, Hoult and Palmer has to do without subtitles and is therefore only recommended to interested viewers with a good knowledge of English. The three talk about the differences between earlier script versions to the finished film, about stuntmen dressed as zombies or even about cut scenes.

The video extras dive even deeper into the making of the film. There are short documentaries about the adaptation of the novel (approx. 9 min.), about the actors (approx. 16 min.), about the production design and the shooting in Montreal (approx. 14 min.), about the visual effects (approx. 7 min.), the zombie make-up (approx. 10 min.), about weapons and stunts (approx. 10 min.) and about the love story between R and Julie (approx. 16 min.). As if that wasn't enough, there's also a fun interview with Rob Corddy in which he reveals how to play a zombie (approx. 4:30 min.). And Teresa Palmer then invites viewers to a very private behind-the-scenes look (approx. 12 min.). The trailer, a few amusing outtakes (approx. 5 min.) and dropped scenes with optional commentary by the director (approx. 11 min.) round out the very extensive and good bonus offerings!

Conclusion: Warm Bodies is an original, charming and occasionally very amusing zombie comedy that is less horror movie than unusual and very loveable Romeo & Juliet variant. The DVD presents the likeable brain-eaters in good picture and sound quality. The disc can really show off with the very extensive and worth seeing bonus material. For this, the bottom line is a more than deserved: Absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp