The main character of the film is R, a zombie who feasts on the memories of the people whose brains he consumes. He eats the brain of a teenage boy, indulges in his memories and proceeds to fall in love with that boy's girlfriend.
This film has a long time to go before its release, but anti-Twihards (a.k.a. Internet lurkers who hate the Stephenie Meyer series) are already kissing the zombie movie genre goodbye. The fact is, although Warm Bodies isn't traditional in the sense of classic zombie movies, it's just another romanticized monster movie. Monsters rendered as loving rather than completely terrifying may appear to be a new development in the horror genre, but movies and books have taken the fright factor away from beasts for over 250 years.
Although it is admittedly fun to pick on movies that are obviously poorly written and complain that it's the end of the werewolf as we know it, these movies simply follow in the vein of their predecessors. The only new part of these films is the intense level of dedication and obsession fans develop towards the monsters.
Beasts of Old
Believe it or not, two classic movies featuring monsters started out as books.
Most are only familiar with Disney's version of The Beauty and the Beast, but the narrative comes from a French fairy tale, La Belle et la Bête, first published in 1740 as a lengthy rendition by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and abridged into the version we know in 1756.
This story bridged the gap between human and monster by making a beast out of a prince. The beast could have been any random, sinister creature from the forest that captures and terrorizes Belle, but instead he is a gentle soul who does everything in his power to prove he is a good guy, including waiting on her all day, giving her lavish gifts and proclaiming his love to her. What? Think this sounds like Twilight? Just like how that series made its way to the silver screen, movie studios picked up this story and shared it through film.
Another monster movie originating in print is The Phantom of the Opera. This story, well-known through its usage in several film and musical adaptations, was written by French writer Gaston Leroux in the first decade of the 20th Century.
Its 1925 silent film adaptation, billed as a horror movie, features Lon Chaney as the Phantom, Erik. Erik has a ghastly appearance and murderous intentions, but also has undying love and admiration for Christine Daae. He is terrifying, but the audience simultaneously sympathizes with his yearning for acceptance.
From there came Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical and its 2004 film adaptation of the same name. With each succeeding adaptation, Erik became more and more desirable. An alluring musical talent distracts the audience from Erik's deformations. By now he is no longer an inherently evil creature — the fact that his appearance carved out the path of his life makes him more of a lonely creature. Watching his heartbreak in the end causes people to want the best for him rather than wanting him gone, as they would with traditional monster movies.
Creature Features
Although the twentieth century brought about classic films such as the iconic Dracula, Frankenstein, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Mummy and King Kong, some of the most popular monster flicks made the monsters protagonists, even comic relief.
There's Young Frankenstein, in which Frankenstein's monster dances to "Puttin' on the Ritz" and becomes a sophisticated member of society in the end. This deviates significantly from the traditional monster of the Mary Shelley novel who goes after Frankenstein's family out of vengeance.
There's Teen Wolf, in which Michael J. Fox grows a ton of hair, becomes a basketball star and gets the girl. Had he become a traditional lycanthrope, there's a pretty good chance he would be way too violent around human beings and that he became that way by worshipping the Devil. However, since those are hardly characteristics of an endearing protagonist in a teen movie, the writers took some liberties to jazz up the werewolf mythology.
There's Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, in which a girl who just discovered her magical powers struggles to get the spells right. First there was an Archie Comics series, followed by a 1996 made-for-TV movie. People liked the sweet, naïve witch so much that the story then became a television series. Witches, like werewolves, are also traditionally known for worshipping the devil, but Melissa Joan Hart's character did nothing of the sort. She was much more interested in maintaining a balance between her magical powers and being a teenager.
And nobody can forget Casper, the friendly ghost who is just so darn cute and in love. It's definitely not your traditional ghost story with the chilling creaks and moans and clanking chains, as Casper's genial nature and eager smile make him a desired houseguest. For children afraid of the spirits lurking in their closets, Casper is a literal light in the darkness. Even though they realize much later that he's most likely the ghost of a child who died young, this sad fact can't keep them from enjoying his silly antics.
There are many more films that fit into this category, and filmmakers kept churning them out because the audience loves a happy ending. Traditional monster movies often end with the villagers killing the monster and thus ending its reign of terror, but this isn't happy. What's happy is when the monster's humanlike qualities are so redeemable that people can accept it, whether it be ghost, undead corpse, witch or werewolf.
Vampire Popularity
But what really opened the floodgates to monster compassion was Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire, published in 1976 and adapted into the 1994 movie. In the film version, a very handsome vampire named Louis (Brad Pitt) tells the story of his afterlife and all the angst he has experienced from killing people. Again, it sounds familiar. Except at this point in the vampire craze, the vampires didn't sparkle, most of them were still vicious creatures sleeping in coffins and turning into ash under direct sunlight.
Both the book series and movie became extremely popular. This was the Twilight before the Twilight. Fans were crazy for the characters in the series and devoured everything they could.
Before The Vampire Chronicles popularized and romanticized the vampire genre, there weren't many people who cared for them. All they did was suck blood and sleep in coffins. With this development in the monster, audiences fell in love with the complexities inherent in the vampire and with their conflicts between compassion and evil nature. They kept reading and watching these movies to see their favorite villains try to compensate for their actions with their humanity, and this immense popularity paved the way for shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, which became especially popular with teenage audiences.
And then Twilight came along, and the vampire craze spiraled into hysteria. Fans lined up for book signings, bought t-shirts specifying which side of the love triangle they supported, purchased enough books to land each one in the series on the New York Times bestseller list and flooded movie theaters with each movie release.
Had Twilight centered around an evil vampire that killed everybody without thought nor compassion, nobody would have even heard of it. People are obsessed with love stories, and they all wanted to be Bella, so the series' reworking of the vampire myth, albeit a tad bit ridiculous and fluffy, brought it the success it currently enjoys.
The Result
Seeing the box office success and immense popularity of the movies in the Twilight Saga, Hollywood has continued exploring movies with similar paranormal romance themes to capitalize on teenage audiences and the compassion they like to show towards monsters.
Such movies include Red Riding Hood, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, the same director who did Twilight. It has all the darkness, fantasy elements and even the same actor playing the main character's father. The love interest in this movie ends up becoming a monster, a werewolf in this case, and he leaves the main character so that he can learn how to control his new tendencies. If this won't tear at the audience's heartstrings, what will?
There is also Snow White and the Huntsman, which opens June 1. This movie has monsters, forests and Kristen Stewart, and it's a twist on the classic Snow White fairytale with more action. In this movie, the man who appears to be evil in the beginning, the huntsman, ends up becoming the main character's mentor as she fights to take down the evil queen. It deviates from the monster boyfriend tradition of these movies, but viewers will still develop an attachment to the character.
With the release of Warm Bodies, the paranormal romance genre will continue to be profitable for studios. These movies may not get the highest scores on Metacritic, but they do rake in a ton of money at the box office.
And the fact that they rake in so much money means one thing: humans like improvement. Not improvement in genre — I don't think it's my place to comment on the progression of the monster — but self-improvement. The creatures traditionally seen as monsters and chased out of town are trying really hard to be friends with those townspeople now. People can complain all they want about these romanticized monster movies, and they have every right to do so, but there's one thing they must keep in mind: even the monsters want a happy ending.