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.
Get more Little White Lies
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.
