When Shaun Of The Dead was first released its tagline was "A Romantic Comedy. With Zombies." There'd been zombie movies that took themselves less than seriously before, but this was the first in the zom-rom-com genre. If Shaun was to come out now, ten years on, that slogan would have seemed totally unoriginal. With zombies now broadened from the original Romero undead to just about anything that likes to eat people (walk, run or fly, we don't care) there's constant reports of them reaching saturation, yet The Walking Dead still shuffles along and the promise of a truly immersive zombie game keeps new Dead Islands/Dead Risings etc. popping up. But there's really only so many places a zombie rom-com can go; you can either use it as a backdrop (Shaun) or a cross-species romance (Warm Bodies). Other than that, the whole thing's tapped. We've just had the release of Life After Beth, which 'twists' things by bringing in a necrophilia slant - Dane DeHann's deceased girlfriend (named Beth to allow for the pun title) is brought back to life. But beyond that idea it's offering little new and despite seeming totally disinterested in the zombie apocalypse it spends as inordinate amount of time alluding to it with little pay-off. Its incredibly disappointing box office should stop any more in the genre. Phew.
