The film Zombieland begins with a statement on the absence of humanity, saying, “I wish I could tell you that this was still America, but I’ve come to realize that you can’t have a country without people. And there are no people here. No, my friends, this is now the United States of Zombieland.” The movie, directed by Ruben Fleischer, features a world torn apart by a virus turning innocent humans into flesh-eating, mindless zombies. Unlike many classical zombie movies in which monsters are slow-moving, reanimated corpses, Zombieland features swift-moving, monstrous humans infected by a disease. Zombies, and monsters in general, are scary because they represent the unknown. They are close enough to humans both in identity and location that…show more content… The virus -- while it does not take the zombies’ lives -- robs them of compassion and logic, elements which are requisites of humanity. Therefore the zombies in Zombieland, despite the fact that they are humans infected by a disease, should be considered non-humans. Their portrayal as monsters without the ability to think or feel suggests that the difference between the living and the dead, the human and the monstrous can be described as the ability to think, feel, and change, or the lack thereof. To be a monster, as Zombieland seeks to redefine them, is the end of close interaction and of adaptation, so by contrast a human must have those…show more content… The four main characters encounter Murray in his Los Angeles mansion while looking for a safe place to spend the night. They learn that rather than stringently avoiding zombies, Murray uses makeup to disguise himself as a zombie and is able to live a relatively normal life, except for the absence of human companionship. By crossing into the monsters’ state of being, Murray ironically protects himself from becoming one of them. But for both characters, zombie avoidance strategies turn out to be human avoidance strategies as well. Columbus’s self-imposed regulations isolate him and keep him from developing human bonds, so he lives a life similar to his lonely, gamer, pre-apocalypse existence (with slightly more cardio). Murray can enjoy his old hobbies, like golf, but has no companions until the four main characters