Warm Bodies parents guide

Warm Bodies Parent Guide

While Warm Bodies might be a notch up from most zombie movies, don't expect this lifeless version of Romeo and Juliet to replace the Bard's own words.

Overall C+

When a "Romeo and Juliet" type of romance emerges between a zombie (Nicholas Hoult) and a living human (Teresa Palmer), it forces both the cold dead and the warm bodies to confront their differences.

Release date January 31, 2013

Violence C-
Sexual Content B
Profanity D+
Substance Use B-

Why is Warm Bodies rated PG-13? The MPAA rated Warm Bodies PG-13 for zombie violence and some language.

Run Time: 98 minutes

Official Movie Site

Parent Movie Review

What has the world of romance come to when vampires, werewolves and zombies have become the objects of girls’ desires? Can’t a regular guy cut it anymore when it comes to love?

If Warm Bodies is any indication of what girls really want in a boyfriend, then men are approaching romance in all the wrong ways. Forget the flowers, the chocolates, dinner or long walks on the beach and take a lesson in wooing from R (Nicholas Hoult). He’s a conflicted zombie who gets his girl by grunting, groping, dragging his feet and eating the brains of her dead boyfriend (Dave Franco).

Before meeting Julie (Teresa Palmer), R lumbers around a deserted airport concourse with the rest of the undead who’ve been locked outside the walls protecting the last surviving humans of an apocalyptic disaster. When opportunity arises, he lunches on mortals, preferring to dine on their brains, which gives him their memories.

After stumbling upon a group of young adult soldiers outside the safety zone, R makes a quick meal of Julie’s halfhearted boyfriend. Glimpses of hot and heavy kissing between the couple are seemingly all it takes for R to be instantly smitten with the feisty, gun-toting blonde. Smearing blood on her face to conceal her human smell, R tows Julie back to his bachelor’s pad inside an abandoned jet where he clumsily attempts to alleviate her fears of being eaten.

Meanwhile Julie’s father (John Malkovich) launches a search party to find his daughter, but by the time the tanks and armed soldiers roll down the street where R and Julie are hiding in a suburban home, she has succumbed to love—or the Stockholm Syndrome. Since the movie is a lowbrow adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, viewers will likely side with love rather than the mental disorder.

Despite the outcomes of past encounters with the flesheaters, Julie is convinced the lurching, pale-skinned corpse is becoming more humanlike—as are the rest of the zombies. If the idea seems laughable that’s good because this is after all a rom-com (releasing just in time for Valentines Day). And while many of the gruesome aspects of the undead are played for humor, some depictions of blood-covered jowls, close range gunshots, brain consumption and a knife in the chest fail to be funny.

Yet unlike so many scripts where the good girl brings the wild boy home to a disapproving father, the living characters in Warm Bodies have a profound and positive change on the walking dead instead of the other way around. Love, acceptance and a human connection appear to be all these bloodless beings need to restart the plasma and platelets flowing in their veins.

While Warm Bodies might be a notch up from most zombie movies, don’t expect this lifeless version of Romeo and Juliet to replace the Bard’s own words.

Directed by Jonathan Levine. Starring Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, Dave Franco. Running time: 98 minutes. Theatrical release January 31, 2013. Updated

Warm Bodies
Rating & Content Info

Why is Warm Bodies rated PG-13? Warm Bodies is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for zombie violence and some language.

Violence: A plague turns humans into zombies and eventually skeletons. A character pulls the skin off his face. Zombies and Bonies (skeletons) eat other characters. (Blood is shown around their mouths and on their hands.) A character eats the brains of a human. A child is hit at school and gets a bloody injury. A girl stabs a knife into the chest of a man. A man talks about shooting his wife. Characters engage in fistfights. A character is shown with bullet holes in his back. A girl pulls a gun on a man. Other characters are threatened with guns. Characters have blood smeared on their faces and hands.

Sexual Content: A couple kisses passionately. A girl takes her outer clothes off in front of a boy. Another couple kisses. The figure of a man in the shower is partially revealed.

Language: The script contains one strong sexual expletive, numerous scatological slang and profanities and several terms of Deity.

Alcohol / Drug Use: Characters drink wine with dinner. A boy gives a bottle of beer to a girl who drinks it.

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Warm Bodies Parents' Guide

How does R view human connection after becoming a zombie? What does he think humans were like before the apocalypse? How does the movie portray people interacting (or not interacting) with each other in the airport? How important do you think human connections are?

Julie believes that the zombies can be healed. What do you think would heal our society?

What do you think attracts Julie to R?

Warm Bodies is based on the novel by Isaac Marion.

Home Video

The most recent home video release of Warm Bodies movie is June 4, 2013. Here are some details…

Home Video Notes: Warm Bodies

Release Date: 4 June 2013

Warm Bodies releases to home video (Blu-ray/Digital Copy/UltraViolet) with the following extras:

Featurettes:

- Boy Meets, ER, Doesn’t Eat Girl

- R&J

- A Little Less Dead

- Extreme Zombie Make-Over!

- A Wreck in Progress

- Bustin Caps

-Beware of The Boneys

-Whimsical Sweetness: Teresa Palmer’s Warm Bodies Home Movies

- Zombie Acting Tips with Rob Corddry

- Audio Commentary with Director Jonathon Levine and Actors Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer

- Deleted Scenes with Optional Audio Commentary with Screenwriter/Director Jonathan Levine

- Gag Reel: Shrug and Groan

Related home video titles:

Shakespeare’s romantic tale of star-crossed lovers has been adapted into other screenplays too, including Baz Luhrmann’s version of Romeo and Juliet and the story of feuding garden decorations Gnomeo and Juliet. Love affairs between humans and typically horror characters are also depicted in The Twilight Saga.

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