Zombieland insists that it is America’s Shaun of the Dead. I know Shaun of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead is a good friend, and you, Zombieland, are no Shaun of the Dead. I’m a sucker for zombie movies, but this one’s the pits. It’s set in an unspecified future where the world is overrun by flesh-craving undead, and the sole survivors are a Michael Cera-like nerd (Jesse Eisenberg), a redneck ass-kicker (Woody Harrelson), and a pair of flimflamming sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin). The only sanctuary is a Disneyland-like amusement park on the Pacific coast, but getting there is half the fun. Or would be, if this were any fun. It’s full of elements, like Harrelson’s strenuous performance, which should be fun but for some weird reason aren’t. Seriously, you can’t make a cult movie on purpose—they just happen after they’re made, whether or not that was the intention. And this one just about breaks its back straining for cultish coolness. So you have “hilarious” gore effects, random humor involving clowns and twinkies that doesn’t build to anything, snarky references to 1997, and even a cameo by a hipster icon (which I won’t spoil, because the movie needs whatever surprise it’s got). The audience I saw it with was so primed for it that they would have burst their sides laughing at the drop of a hat. Afterwards, the mood was vaguely irritated, as if they had been taken in by P.T. Barnum. This George Romero fan was not amused.