Hurrah for zombies!

So now we have a shiny new sub-genre, the zombie horror-based comedy.

First there was “Shaun of the Dead.” Now it is joined by “Zombieland.” In the world of shiny new sub-genres, two is a trend.

As funny as “Shaun of the Dead” is, “Zombieland is at least as good. The two films perfectly demonstrate the difference between English and American senses of humor. “Shaun of the Dead” is quiet and dry, drawing its laughs from its restraint. “Zombieland” is in your face and physical, reveling in irony and crudity. But it’s funny crude, not crude crude.

Zombies have taken over the world, killing nearly everyone and turning the planet into a zombie wasteland (although Garland, Texas, we are told, always looked like that).

Our hero from Garland, Jesse Eisenberg, suspects he may be the last human alive. He is a wimp, with numerous phobias and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Perversely, his failings have helped keep him alive -- he has no close family and friends to feed on him, and his default mode of fear makes him extra cautious at all times.

Naturally, there are a few other survivors -- otherwise we wouldn’t have much of a movie. Our unnamed hero (none of the characters have names) meets his opposite in Woody Harrelson. Harrelson plays a tough, hard-living, macho redneck, the sort who would find Eisenberg’s sniveling character an annoyance and an irritant. Nevertheless, with their survival on the line, the two join forces, at least for a while.

Eventually, they meet two sisters, played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. The younger girl (Breslin) has been bitten by a zombie and needs to be put down. But this is a comedy, and Breslin currently has the best career in the cast, so it is easy to guess that she will be around for most of the film.

The potential concern in a movie such as “Zombieland” is that it is just one joke, or at least just one note, and that will tire of it long before it ends. But writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and director Ruben Fleischer keep the laughs coming throughout the picture. Part of their secret is that much of the humor is based on the characters’ reactions to one another (the rest tends to be about the funny way zombies go splat -- it’s not quite gross-out humor, but it’s not for the faint of heart). And part of it is that although the story is simple, it is always interesting. We like the characters an we hope they succeed in their efforts to survive.

And although zombie movies have been done to death, so to speak, “Zombieland” manages still to be inventive. It makes good use of its locations -- the amusement-park climax is particularly satisfying -- and it never forgets that it is a comedy, not a horror film.

When you think about it, the concept of zombies has always been kind of funny. It just took “Shaun of the Dead” and “Zombieland” to figure that out.