Zombieland

Background

The film score is composed by Brooklyn-based composer-producer David Sardy in his maiden collaboration with Fleischer. He recruited him due to his hard rock and heavy metal production background and wanted it to be different from traditional film score compositions. The score had a western influence, most probably of Ennio Morricone's music for spaghetti western drama while also having metal music influences ranging from thrash metal, death metal and grindcore.

Fleischer, who was a big fan of heavy metal music and envisioned the final showdown to be filled with bands like Slayer, Death Deicide, Terrorizer, Bolt Thrower and Carcass. But the production team assuming that these songs would come cheaper and instead focused on purchasing the rights to more mainstream songs. But it turned out that the metal songs were most expensive to acquire. Hence, Fleischer forfeited those plans and insisted Sardy to compose a metal score in the climactic sequence.

Release

The soundtrack was released on October 6, 2009, four days after the film's release, by Relativity Music Group.

Reception

James Christopher Monger of AllMusic wrote "Forgoing the usual dissonant, orchestral arrangements that have populated horror soundtracks since the genre came to prominence, Sardy peppers Zombieland with a barrage of industrial beats, distorted guitars, and electronic mayhem, resulting in the audio equivalent of attention deficit disorder. It works wonders in the context of the film, but as a stand-alone listening experience, it may induce epilepsy." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times noted that "[Sardy] delivers a competent score that doesn't stand out but only serves to underscore the on-screen action and that it does nicely." Chris Bumbray of JoBlo.com called it a "wicked soundtrack".

Additional music

The following songs are featured in the film, but not included in the soundtrack:

Personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes: