Memorable Scene

My favorite and most memorable scene is from Zombieland. Near the film's end in the carnival, Columbus if faced with his greatest fear, clowns. To free Wichita and her younger sister from atop a drop tower ride, he is forced to deal with an undead circus clown. The one on one with this zombie does a really good job at bringing about Columbus' fears. He's spent the entire film killing countless of the rotting meatsacks, but now that he's run out of ammunition and faced with one that represents his deepest, darkest, and, as of now, only fear. As the camera slowly turns toward a medium shot of the clown zombie, blood and meat protruding from its mouth, you can almost hear the "oohhh" of the theater audience. The music slowly builds in the background, creating an intense atmosphere as he looks up a Wichita and realizes something very important. Columbus' only reason for his survival is his personal set of rules that serve as the entire premise of his character and the decisions he makes. It is in this moment that he makes the realization that in order to save the one he loves, some rules are meant to be broken. Thus he shatters one his most important rules, "Don't be a hero.", and the music almost instantly swells back in, as he rather quickly disposes of the clown and rescues Wichita. 

This is what I liked most about the film, it had strong character development where the audience could connect with the main characters in the movie, well, a ZOMBIE movie. A lot of films dont lack this quality, but most horror/zombie films center around putting a large group of displaced survivors in one enclosed area as they are each slowly picked off by the horde, until they finally decide that while they're most weak with fewer amounts of survivors that they should actually make an effort to leave. Here, it actually centers around the fact that people have knowledge of what to do in the event of an apocalypse, hence the purpose  for Columbus' set of rules. I mean, this scene takes place in a carnival, what do you think they were there for? They traveled there in hopes of finally finding it to be a place of salvation where they can just manage to outlive the apocalypse, whining infinitely about how much they wish they could go back to their old lives, seeing how this one holds absolutely no benefits? No, they came their to have fun, an aspect that the film manages to understand very well. Its not trying to be a tongue-in-cheek overriding with clichés comedy. Its trying to be exactly what it is, a huge joy-ride from start to end filled with twists and turns and a few shocking moments here and there like that of a roller coaster. 

Nevertheless, this is why I liked this scene so much. It imprinted a lasting impression into my mind of how Columbus, a social outcast to the modern world, slowly became forced to deal with reality, and this scene showed his final tug away from the his set of rules that kept him both alive, yet torn away from others. Similar to how he was before the outbreak.