Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 2016 ***

The genre mash-up cross-breeding of literary or historical texts with splatter culture hasn’t set the cinematic world alight; neither Pride and Prejudice and Zombies nor Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter seem to have found much of an audience. While neither film is a world-beater, each film is interesting in the war they attempt to spin out a simple sketch idea into a full feature. Writer/director Burr Steers, adapting the Quirk Books imprint, sees Elizabeth and Darcy (Lily James and Sam Reily) engaging in a tentative romance against the background of a full zombie apocalypse, and the violence is deliberately juxtaposed with the more sensitive feelings on show. The result is clever and nicely done, even if horror or literary fans are likely to be confused, it should be remembered that Steers’ film is a spoof, and has no other intent other than to showcase it’s own oddness.