Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies is a novel by author Isaac Marion. The book was described as a "zombie romance" by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and makes allusions to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The author, based in Seattle, originally wrote a short story titled "I Am a Zombie Filled with Love". Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, acquired the publishing rights to the full novel in early 2010.

Plot

In a post-apocalyptic future, a male zombie still in the early stages of decay lives in a community of the Dead in an abandoned airport near the city. He refers to himself as “R” since he cannot remember his full name, among other details of his life. R reveals through first person narrative that human civilization has been destroyed by wars and disasters, resulting in a mysterious zombie plague. Now whole communities of zombies live in hives, and are separated into two categories based on the amount of decay: Fleshies, the Dead who still have flesh on them, and Boneys, the Dead who have been reduced to nothing more than skeletons with bits of muscle keeping them together. The Boneys are basically the leaders of the Dead, and are seemingly stronger and more intelligent than Fleshies. They can only be killed if their brains are destroyed. The zombies are very lethargic for the most part, have limited speech and short memories, and are notably illiterate. They live in what is a mere, twisted shadow of a normal society. One of the few times they are truly focused and animated is when they go hunting for the Living, their only food source, during which they spontaneously form a hunting party. The brain is the best part, because if they eat it, then they can relive the memories, feelings, and thoughts of their prey. Anything that’s left of the prey is brought back for the others to eat.

Warm Bodies (film)

Warm Bodies is a 2013 American paranormal romanticzombie comedy film based on Isaac Marion's novel of the same name. Directed and written by Jonathan Levine, the film stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton and John Malkovich.

The film focuses on the development of the relationship between Julie (Palmer), a young woman, and "R" (Hoult), a zombie, and how their eventual romance develops throughout. The film is noted for displaying human characteristics in zombie characters, and for being told from a zombie's perspective.

Plot

About eight years after a zombie apocalypse, R, a zombie, spends his days wandering around an airport which is now filled with hordes of his fellow undead, including his best friend M. R and M achieve rudimentary communication with grunts and moans and occasional near-words. As a zombie, R constantly craves human flesh, especially brains, as he is able to "feel alive" through the victims' memories he experiences when he eats them.

While R and a pack of zombies are out hunting for food, they encounter Julie Grigio and a group of her friends, who were sent out by Julie's father from a heavily fortified, walled-off human enclave in a nearby city to recover medical supplies from abandoned buildings. R sees Julie and is drawn to her. After being shot in the chest by Julie's boyfriend, Perry, R kills him while Julie is distracted, and eats his brain, giving R his thoughts and memories, making his attraction to Julie even stronger. He rescues Julie from the rest of the pack by wiping some zombie blood on her face, masking her scent, and takes her back to an airplane he resides in at the airport to keep her safe.