When I was growing up in the 1990’s, I was addicted to Nintendo Power and the one of the games that stuck out in my head was Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Released in 1993, it was a run and gun game featuring two teenagers using squirt guns and other such wacky weaponry against the legions of the undead that had taken over their town (amongst other monsters like vampires and werewolves). When I finally got my hands on it for the Super Nintendo I ended up sucking so bad that I never picked it up again, but I still have fond memories of the game regardless.
Don’t worry, that slightly unnecessary story has a point; it turns out someone’s attempting to make it into a movie. First Showing reports that John Darko has written a script for the movie and is attempting to find financial backing to get it made along with producers April Wade and Ahmed al Baker. Here’s the catch: they don’t necessarily have full rights to use the ZAMN name or any of the characters yet, but assuming that the sources that tipped First Showing are correct, it’s only a matter of time and once production gets started, it will be independent as opposed to being produced within the studio system. Giving the ludicrous nature of the game, that’s probably a good thing since I doubt the people who run the bigger studios have ever played it and would probably try to meddle with it in order to appeal to the broadest demographic humanly possible.
So what’s the plot? Well, there’s no actual plot-plot named, but I would assume roughly the same as the game (teenagers killing zombies and saving their town). It was also described as “John Hughes meets Judd Apatow meets George A. Romero“, but I’m unsure of what that will turn out like. That just sounds like a way to sell it to investors more than anything.
If you couldn’t tell, a big screen ZAMN gets my jibblets tingling (not those jibblets, pervert) and I really hope it finds the financing it needs to get made. It’d be nice to get a good video game movie once in awhile. And for those who have never played it, here’s a five minute sample of what the game played like, so you can see the source material in action and judge for yourself if you want to see this on the big screen:
Are you pumped for a Zombies Ate My Neighbors movie, or are you burned out on zombie comedy after Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead?