Essentialist of… End of the World Movies – Comedy

Welcome to my third Essentialist installment offering another selection of movies that focus on the end of the world, this list focusing on comedy films.

The big screen really does love a disaster so there are quite a few to choose from. To help with the dilemma of what to watch I’ve broken them down, with this list covering the films that approach the apocalypse with a wry smile, a bittersweet tear or a nihilistic gut laugh. The comedically cinematic apocalypse takes few prisoners but provides a lot of laughs. And, quite often, zombies.

Following on from my list of disease-based and disaster-driven catastrophe movies, this is my #Essentialist of some great, funny world-ending or world-ended films I’d heartily recommend.

Tank Girl (1995)

A comet-strike has reduced the planet to a desert landscape and the drought-ravaged Earth of 2033 is now run by the Water & Power corporation and its megalomaniac ruler Malcolm McDowell. The only resistance to W&P’s dominance are the Rippers (including Ice T), a group of super soldiers genetically engineered from kangaroos and Tank Girl, a foul-mouthed rebel with a modified W&P tank and an anti-establishment bent. The overall film is not perfect but it is boisterous and fun, and Lori Petty does an outstanding job of bringing to life the titular heroine of Hewlett (Gorillaz and Doom Patrol) and Martin’s original graphic novel series.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

I shouldn’t have to tell anyone about Shaun of the Dead, the zom-com masterpiece that shot the two leads Simon Pegg and Nick Frost into stardom. An homage to, parody of and superb zombie film in itself, Shaun of the Dead perfectly transitioned director Edgar Wright from the brilliant TV comedy series Spaced (one of my all time favourites) to the big screen. This zombie film hits every comedy button and is infinitely quotable. “How’s that for a slice of fried gold?”

Idiocracy (2006)

In Mike Judge’s Idiocracy, after test-scoring as the most average man in the army, Luke Wilson has been selected as a guinea pig to study the effects of cryogenic freezing and is put into hibernation for one year. However, funding changes and administrative slips result in Wilson’s pod being forgotten about, and only awoken again accidentally in 2505. This is a very different world to the one he left, and is on the brink of total collapse. The cause of humanity’s decline was not some pervasive virus, aliens or an undead uprising, but devolution. Society’s dumbing-down and unchecked consumerism has gradually decreased average human intelligence to the point where an ex-wrestler (Terry Crewes) is President and the number one TV show is Ow! My Balls! Humanity has regressed so far that Luke Wilson (of all people!) is now the smartest man on the planet. A planet he might be able to save, if only his reasoned, rational voice didn’t sound too whiney for the Idiots to hear. It was satire at the time but Idiocracy is looking less preposterous with every election…

Zombieland (2009)

Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg are our heroes in this massively successful post-zombiepocalypse road movie. Slick and enjoyable, aided in part by a film-stealing cameo by Bill Murray, Zombieland was hugely popular and rightfully so, as it is good fun. However, the film lacks something, an essential element that most zombie outings offer; a critical or satirical reflection on our society. There is none of Romero’s consumerist introspection in the comedy, unless laughing at fat zombies running counts, and Zombieland feels flimsy and throwaway for the lack of it. Also, I honestly can’t understand Harrelson’ s character Tallahassee’s (or America’s) obsession with Twinkies, one of the least inspiring and most overrated foods I’ve ever eaten. But I digress, the movie is a popcorn-munching favourite, and that Bill Murray scene is great..

Planet Terror (2007)

In 2007 Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino released a collaborative project expressing their love of Grindhouse, the 1970s low-budget, B-movie genre of films. Shown in the US as a double-feature but worldwide as two separate features, Tarantino’s typically monologue-driven Death Proof explored the violent mysoginism of the genre, while Rodriguez took the opportunity to film the zombie splatterfest Planet Terror.

Rose McGowan, cast not just in spite of industry-blacklisting by Harvey Weinstein after making rape allegations in 2005, but also as a f**k you to the film’s Weinstein-owned parent company, plays the ridiculously badass lead. There are star cameos aplenty, gore and gratuitous ultraviolence (McGowan has a machine gun replace her lost leg) but the real star is the style. Purposefully shot to mimic the clumsy and artless camerawork of the genre and edited to appear like sections of film are missing or damaged, Planet Terror‘s recovered movie feel embodies Grindhouse perfectly. The pre-film trailer for Danny Trejo’s (at that time) fictional film, Machete (the feature was released in 2010 and a sequel in 2013), is just the icing on the cake.

Downsizing (2017)

As the planet battles the increasingly damaging effects of climate change, a group of Norwegian scientists make a breakthrough which might change everything. They have perfected miniaturisation, whereby humans can go through a process to be reduced to five inches high. The reduction in resources and food needed, as well as relative cost of living proves popular and within years, the Downsizing craze has swept the planet with tiny, purpose-built cities springing up across the globe. Everyman Matt Damon is keen to downsize in order to upgrade his life but after his wife Kristen Wiig abandons him before undergoing treatment his circumstances are as reduced as his stature. Through a friendship with a Vietnamese rebel leader turned house cleaner, Damon finds that the miniaturised world also has a classist underbelly and entrenched inequality. Well worth a watch, Downsizing is a really interesting and well realised film concept that sometimes wanders into the banal. I blame Matt Daaaaamon for that though.

Warm Bodies (2013)

Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies takes a slightly different approach to the post-Zombiepocalyspe landscape, parodying a Romeo and Juliet plot amidst the brain-munching horror, except of course that one of the star-crossed lovers is a zombie. It doesn’t immediately sound like love at first bite but Warm Bodies‘ Rom-Zom-Com plot offers a refreshingly honest and positive perspective, making it a pleasant diversion from the typical corpses and gore splatterfest of most undead movies.

The World’s End (2013)

The final part of Edgar Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, The World’s End follows Simon Pegg’s alcoholic hero Gary King as he tries to recapture the best moment of his life; the night thirty years earlier when he and his friends had nearly finished The Golden Mile, a twelve-pub crawl in their childhood town. After cajoling his friends, including Nick Frost, Martin Freeman and Paddy Considine, into joining him the five return to Newton Haven to complete the task. However, as the evening progresses and the friends begins to feel the effects of the crawl, they also realise that something is very wrong in the town; most of the residents have been replaced with blue-blooded androids. Aliens have been swapping non-compliant people with ‘blanks’ and they could be next on the assimilation menu. Gary convinces the group that, to keep their cover and attempt an escape, they have to complete the Golden Mile and make it to The World’s End.

Although often and unduly underrated due to the (well deserved) adulation of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, I enjoy The World’s End more each time I watch it. In particular there is some great fight choreography involved, especially in the scene where Pegg is protecting his pint in the middle of a bar brawl.

Fido (2006)

Another alternative take on the ‘scourge’ of the living dead , Fido imagines a 1950s USA where the ‘Zombie Wars’ outbreak has recently been overcome. The US has adapted to living with their undead, even adopting them within their society through ZomCon, a company that utilises mood-controlling collars to employ the dead as manual workers and pets. Carrie-Ann Moss purchases a zombie for her son Timmy who has always wanted one. Timmy names the zombie (played by Billy Connolly) Fido and he has an immediate and positive affect on the household. However, Fido’s collar sometimes malfunctions, beginning a new outbreak in the town… Andrew Currie’s Fido is a breath of fresh, whimsical air within the (understandably) fetid zombie landscape.

Delicatessen (1991)

Somewhere in the post-apocalyptic ruins of France, out-of-work clown Louison seeks work and shelter. He finds both at an apartment building whose patriarch, a butcher, hires him to make repairs around the building. However, the position is always temporary as the butcher and residents have a grisly ulterior motive; to cannibalise the unwary applicant. Frustratingly, Louison initially proves too useful and for a while too charming to kill, that is before he begins to form a tender relationship with the butcher’s myopic daughter. Louison’s time is running out and, sooner or later, he is bound for the butcher’s block. Delicatessen is an absolute wonder and entertains the senses as only Jeunet and Caro films can, in particular a scene which begins with the testing of a singular squeaky bed spring and crescendos with the whole building in an orchestral symphony of squeaking, clunking and honking. Fantastical French magical realism at its best.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World - Poster — kinopoisk.ru

The end of the world is nigh. A meteorite is on course to erase life on Earth, all attempts to stop it have failed and for some reason life insurance salesman Steve Carrell is struggling to stay positive. Carrell hits rock bottom after his wife leaves him but the unexpected arrival in his life of a small dog, which he names Sorry, keeps him afloat. With the planet’s days numbered and nothing left to lose, he and his new friend Keira Knightley embark on a road trip to find Carrell the lost love of his life and a plane for Knightley to join her family in England. It doesn’t always sustain its mood but you know what to expect with Steve Carrell; Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is sweet, bleak but upbeat and a hugely endearing film.