Zom­bieland returns from the dead with Dou­ble Tap trailer

Due to unnat­ur­al forces, the once-dear­ly depart­ed hor­ror flick Zom­bieland has returned from the great beyond to rise again with a sequel sub­ti­tled Dou­ble Tap. If only there was some kind of apt metaphor for all this!

Pick­ing up some 10 years after the apoc­a­lyp­tic events of the pre­vi­ous film, this fol­lowup reunites main quar­tet Woody Har­rel­son (as the screwloose good ol’ boy nick­named Tal­la­has­see), Jesse Eisen­berg (as neb­bishy Colum­bus), Emma Stone (as the hardy Wichi­ta), and Abi­gail Bres­lin (as her younger sis­ter Lit­tle Rock). Regret­tably, the undead Bill Mur­ray is nowhere to be seen.

Things seem to have rel­a­tive­ly cooled off in the scav­enged waste­land once known as Amer­i­ca, as human sur­vivors become more scarce and zom­bies grow resigned to the lack of food. The makeshift fam­i­ly has set up shop in the ivy-cov­ered rem­nants of the White House, where the film sneaks in a covert diss on Trump with a line about the cow­boy-boot­ed Tal­la­has­see restor­ing some dig­ni­ty to the office.

New species of zom­bie have mutat­ed out of the horde, imper­il­ing our heroes and requir­ing them to once more take up arms. They’ll have help from a cou­ple of new­com­ers, how­ev­er, includ­ing a diz­ty girly-girl por­trayed by Zoey Deutch. It seems that Colum­bus takes a shine to her, per­haps com­pli­cat­ing the dynam­ic between him­self and occa­sion­al love inter­est Wichita.

It’s some­what refresh­ing to see a sequel that feels no oblig­a­tion to con­vo­lute its own mythol­o­gy, to over­ex­plain, to reach beyond the extent of its grasp. Noth­ing wrong with just giv­ing us nine­ty more min­utes to hang out with char­ac­ters we enjoy watching.

Zom­bieland: Dou­ble Tap comes to the­aters in the US on 11 Octo­ber, then the UK on 18 October.