Drop-Dead Funny: On the Set of "Zombieland"

We hit Atlanta for a peek at the upcoming zombie comedy

By James Rocchi
Special to MSN Movies

It's an overcast day at the beginning of April on a two-lane highway an hour outside of Atlanta, and the end of the end of the world is nigh. It's the final week of shooting for director Reuben Fleischer's horror-action-comedy "Zombieland," and an abandoned group of buildings that used to be a market or restaurant has been hastily, but efficiently, modified to stand in as a Southwestern "Indian Trading Post" souvenir store hawking trash and trinkets.

Written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, "Zombieland" is a post-zombie-film zombie film, one where the subgenre's conventions are lovingly savaged but also savagely loved. Yes, there's a small band of survivors making a trek across a ruined land, including Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. There are widescreen scenes of chaos and carnage. There's a film-ending action piece. All of this is under the tattered umbrella of what we've come to expect when the dead walk.

But walk around the Georgia set and talk to the stars and filmmakers, and you get a very real sense of how "Zombieland" is going to be different. Director Fleischer explains how Harrelson's character Tallahassee is a "real, weird cowboy kind of post-apocalyptic zombie badass," which sounds familiar enough, until Eisenberg ("Adventureland," "The Squid and the Whale") explains that one of Harrelson's character's biggest motivations is how "his character is obsessed with finding a Twinkie in a post-apocalyptic world, and every time we go somewhere, for one reason or another, the Twinkies are not there. "

Meanwhile, Fleischer explains how Eisenberg's character, Columbus, has survived the zombie apocalypse through a series of neurotic, obsessive rules as "the classic video-game nerd, just kind of a guy who has a little bit of phobia. He's OCD." Harrelson explains one of Eisenberg's character's simple rules for surviving the apocalypse: "[Columbus] always limbers up before he does things, because it's cardio." Eisenberg gets even more exact, speaking from inside his character: "I have a list of 47 rules on how to survive Zombieland."

Fleischer shows us some of the footage, including brief, brisk vignettes explaining several of Columbus' rules. (In one grimly hilarious example, it turns out that, yes, you still want to use your seat belt after the end of the world, because while the laws of human civilization may be wiped out in the zombie apocalypse, the laws of physics aren't.) And in the footage, it becomes apparent that while there's comedy in "Zombieland," there's also a careful attempt to maintain a real level of tension and suspense, with a constant threat to our characters.

When the press grills Fleischer on one of the big questions of the day -- Slow zombies, or fast ones? -- his answer is illuminating: "We definitely went with the fast zombies, among other things, just to distinguish ourselves from "Shaun of the Dead." "Shaun of the Dead" is a real reference point as far as zombie comedies. You know they kind of created the genre, I think, so without wanting to retread too much of the ground that they already covered, we went with fast zombies, just to make it a little more modern, a little bit more scary. I know zombie nerds won't necessarily appreciate it, but I think that after [Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of] "Dawn of the Dead" and "28 Days Later," it's hard for me to go back to slow zombies after that."

But while the world's been ravaged by hordes of hungry revenants in "Zombieland," there's only one zombie on-set today, being lovingly and lavishly rendered disgusting in the makeup trailer. Fleischer explains that as far as the manifestations of the disease on the zombies, "We tried to look at real manifestations like syphilis or leprosy. Some pretty disgusting actual real things. ... The research photos for the make-up department were pretty gnarly. But I really wanted it to be tied to real stuff as opposed to being supernatural. "

Clad in a Western shirt, the stuntman-zombie runs hungrily out of the "Indian Trading Post" when Harrelson rings the bell hanging over the front entrance, only to take a shotgun blast to the head when he clears the doorframe, courtesy of Harrelson laying in wait, as Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin hang back until the dirty deed's done. Harrelson may be the triggerman today, but other cast members have been getting in on the fun, too.

Stone explains how while she isn't the action-film type, her character is: "This is the first chance I've had to do [action]. I don't know how well I'm pulling it off ... but it's just been really fun. I got to learn how to shoot a pump shotgun and load it. I can sort of run, just barely, and yeah, it's been exciting. " Stone and Breslin play a pair of con artists, Wichita and Little Rock, who meet up with Columbus and Tallahassee as the group makes its way West from Texas to California, with a sprawling, corpse-clogged amusement park their final destination.

I ask Stone about her research to play an action heroine in a zombie film, and she explains that Fleischer gave her a laundry list of films to look at to prepare ("a lot of which I didn't watch"), some of which aren't quite what you'd expect: "'True Romance,' which I did watch. 'Kill Bill,' which I've seen. 'Paper Moon,' I watched -- loved 'Paper Moon.' So unbelievable. It's probably one of my favorite movies ever now. "

As take after take of the doorway-execution takes place, Fleischer, his writers, producer Gavin Polone and a host of others watch the video feed in an adjoining room -- dusty, hot and crammed with people. As Harrelson shoots the charging zombie again and again, constantly pausing after to inquire, "Zombie kill of the week?", a running gag in the script. (The joke's even leaked into the actor's mindsets, as each member of the cast can name favorite death scenes out of the multitude: As Eisenberg offers up, "My favorite one is, we're in a grocery store. There's a zombie chasing me, [Woody] has a baseball bat, and I slide under his bat on my knees, so just as he's swinging, it hits the zombie and not me.")

Interestingly enough, though, there's a hasty conference among the creative people and execs in the video feed room, because the moviemakers realize that the scene, as currently written and shot, flies in the face of one of Columbus' rules. Harrelson shoots the zombie and the group step past and walk into the trading post, but Columbus' 47 commandments for surviving the zomb-pocalypse include always being sure to do a "double tap," a second shot to the brain to make sure. So the scene's rewritten on the spot, resulting in Eisenberg administering the second insurance shot as he, Stone and Breslin walk by the body after Harrelson's initial blast. It's a small touch, but it matters: "Zombieland" is being made by people who care.

But, as Eisenberg and Harrelson's chat with the press makes clear, it's also being made by people who are having a blast. I ask Harrelson if, as an actor, he just feels automatically more badass carrying a sawed-off lever-action rifle. "A little bit, I gotta admit," he says. "It just jumps up the testosterone level the moment I put it on. " I ask Eisenberg, whose dry indie comedies have seen him open up his feelings more often than he's had the chance to open fire, what he learned from doing action in "Zombieland,' and his deadpan, dry response might as well be from his filmography: "Yeah, guns are heavier than they look. Just wanted to tell anyone who watches the movie, 'Guns are heavier than they look when you carry them in your hands.'"

When I ask Harrelson and Eisenberg if the secret lesson of every zombie film is "enjoy civilization while you have it," their back-and-forth on the topic speaks to the chemistry they've built up in the past few weeks. Harrelson starts: "Yeah, I suppose so." Eisenberg plays the straight man: "That assumes that zombies will be real at some point." Harrelson sets his co-star up: "Do you think we're heading towards some apocalypse?" Eisenberg underplays the punch line: "I think we're almost there. "

Soon, Harrelson, Eisenberg, Stone and Breslin are called back to the set for the last order of business for the long day: a scene that really can be shot only once, as our foursome, in need of a cathartic purge, demolish the trinkets and treasures of the "Indian Trading Post" as a way of releasing all the pent-up angst of their unlikely partnership -- and, for that matter, the tension of surviving the collapse of human civilization and the constant threat of being gnawed to death. The scene begins with Tallahassee mocking Columbus' barely hidden affections for Wichita, and then a vase is knocked down in a moment of anger -- and soon the four are demolishing the set.

There's a giddy and expectant air before the sequence, and as soon as the establishing moments of conversation are in the can, Fleischer's encouraging his foursome to flip out, culminating in Harrelson and Eisenberg hurling a huge piece of wood and a couple mannequins at a floor-to-ceiling glass shelving unit loaded with vases and bowls, with their director shouting "Do it! Do it!' You sense that the actors, deep in the making of the film, need this chance to blow off steam as much as the characters, deep in their journey across a ruined world. And as the stars hoot, holler and break things while the crew cheers them on, the scene's goony, giddy energy gives you a great understanding of what "Zombieland" is trying to bring to the big screen: Who would have thought the end of the world could be so much fun?

Are you excited for "Zombieland"? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com

James Rocchi's writings on film have appeared at Cinematical.com, Netflix.com, SFGate.com and in Mother Jones magazine. He lives in Los Angeles, where every ending is a twist ending.