Zombieland and Dead Snow (2009)

The living dead ran amok inside my movie-soaked brain with a recent double feature. Grrr! Argh!

Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson play an unlikely zombie-hunting pair in “Zombieland,” the American cousin to the infinitely funnier rom-com-zom satire “Shaun of the Dead.” Eisenberg again siphons from previous innocent-geek roles in such films as “Adventureland,” matching only Michael Cerra in redundancy. Harrelson riffs heroically and quite knowingly on his “Natural Born Killers” psychopath. It’s a short, funny film that cracks on American culture targets from Twinkies to Hanna Montana, and features a stellar cameo from a beloved movie icon. B+

In “Dead Snow,” any wit is trounced by scatological outhouse sex, sick comedy and grisly gut-bursting violence. The plot: Student doctors head to the mountains of Norway for snow sports, drinking, light drugs and hard sex. Not planned for: An army of undead Nazi killers out for blood. Director Tommy Wirkola loves the visual of blood on snow -- eyeballs get squished, skulls are cracked open and entrails wrap around trees. It’s all so over-the-top gleefully, knowingly and illogically bloody bad – paying homage to “Evil Dead” and “Friday the 13th” – that Wirkola scores a guilty pleasure. B