"Zombieland" isn’t the first film to riff on the undead. Edgar Wright’s "Shaun Of The Dead" beat it by five years and did it a whole lot better. But this rip-snorting road movie set in the near future after virtually all of us have been wiped out by a zombie plague is still a "yuckfest" in every sense of the word.

That’s mostly because of the mischievous twinkle in Woody Harrelson’s eyes as he plays an armed-to-the-teeth redneck survivor trying to outrun the horde of marauding meat-eaters. Harrelson is one of those actors who can seem lost on-screen when he’s not paying a character who’s having naughty fun. Here, he’s having a blast, whether he’s cradling a machine gun, a garden weasel, a banjo, or whatever zombie-killing weapon is handy, and getting ready to smash some pasty-faced ghoul into bloody pulp.

Harrelson is a grinning cynic who knows that there’s no hope. He’s just killing time until his number is up, trying to have whatever laughs he can before he becomes one of the zombies.

Zipping around in a Cadillac Escalade loaded with firepower, Harrelson teams up with a trio of fellow survivors. A nerdy loner played by Jesse Eisenberg of "Adventureland" fame provides anal behavior and a laundry list of zombie-survival rules to set up the film, and there is a pair of crafty gal con artists played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.

The four of them overcome their initial distrust to become a sort of post-apocalyptic dysfunctional family, with Harrelson standing in for Homer Simpson. As you’d expect, "Zombieland" is full of gore and guts and goo, but it’s also pretty funny. If all of the red stuff puts you off, stick with it, because there’s a priceless surprise celebrity cameo toward the end that’s easily worth the price of a rental alone.

Now for a look at what else is new on DVD: in "Amelia," Hilary Swank plays pioneering feminist aviator Amelia Earhart; in "The Time Traveler’s Wife," Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams star in a love story that spans the ages; and in "Clint," the man behind "Dirty Harry" and "Unforgiven" gets a huge 35-film box set.