Warm Bodies: Like Twilight, but with Zombies

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t read romance novels. I find the whole genre to be a plague upon all good and great things within the world. Before Twilight, for example, vampires and werewolves were fearsome creatures who stalked the night and tore bodies to pieces, not melodramatic teenagers who skipped math class to make out. (Don’t worry, we still stock the hardcore vampire costumes.)

But Twilight is a singular occurrence, right? Vampires and werewolves are the only ones to have felt the soft, seductive hands of the romance genre, right? I mean, there’s no way someone could write a financially successful romance novel about, say, a zombie, right?

Wrong.

This is where I introduce you to Warm Bodies, a zombie romance novel.

The book.

Here’s the plot, according to Wikipedia:

“R is a zombie. After a zombie apocalypse, he slowly moves through an America made up of collapsed buildings, rusted cars, shattered glass, and hollowed-out high-rises. He can speak only in grunts and simple syllables and craves human brains to get high on the memories they contain. After eating the brain of a suicidal teen, R is overcome with love for the teen’s companion, Julie Grigio. R rescues Julie from certain death by his zombie pack and takes her back to his lair. She eventually leaves, and R follows her to back to Citi Stadium, the largest remaining human habitation.”

Somehow, the book has earned enough attention to garnish a film adaptation, which is expected to hit theaters this year. While I applaud the concept of zombies eating human brains to get high off memories, I cannot express any joy toward this novel or film. Zombies are the over-milked fad of recent years, and now the genre comes face-to-face with romance.

The movie.

If anything, let’s hope this movie kills the zombie fad and we can move onto the next horror icon to become popular, whored out, and then mixed with romance.