We’ve had slow zombies, fast zombies, and funny zombies. Now, with “Warm Bodies,” romantic zombies have shuffled into the mix.

That sound you hear? It’s “Night of the Living Dead” diehards collectively retching.

If only “Warm Bodies” were as easy to dismiss as a corporately contrived, bandwagon-hopping boondoggle. Based on a novel by Isaac Marion and written/directed by Jonathan Levine — who made one of the best films of 2011 (“50/50”) as well as the critically adored “All the Girls Love Mandy Lane” — “Warm Bodies” is a sweetly funny and touching riff on “Beauty and the Beast” or “Romeo & Juliet” — if the Beast feasted on flesh or Romeo came back from the dead.

‘WARM BODIES’ Rated: PG-13 Opens today

Nicholas Hoult (“X-Men: First Class”) is a lurching, lonely zombie named R. He hangs out at the airport, grunting pleasantries to his best friend M (Rob Corddry) and collecting cool stuff from the pre-apocalypse (lots of classic-rock vinyl).

But he still craves meals of the two-legged variety, and when he runs across a team of young humans on a recon mission for supplies, they make for a nice snack — especially Perry (Dave Franco, “Scrubs”), the boyfriend of Julie (Teresa Palmer, “Love and Honor”), whom he can’t bring himself to kill. Feeling something he hasn’t experienced since his death, R saves her from the other ghouls, takes her back to his hiding place on a crumbling airplane, plays some John Waite, and gets her thinking that maybe these zombies aren’t so bad after all.

It’s no happily-ever-after, though, as her dad (John Malkovich) is an avowed zombie slayer.

Sure, logic — even by zombie standards — is thrown out the window. At first, the zombies are as slow as rush-hour traffic but they become Olympic sprinters when the plot calls for it.

But that doesn’t matter as Levine has crafted an engaging tale of unlikely young love that, like his other films, reverberates with a humanity. The message may be obvious — we’re all just a little undead until connecting with someone outside ourselves — but it’s still effective.

“Warm Bodies” isn’t laugh-out-loud funny, but it has enough humor to save it from mawkishness.

Classicists who’d rather see zombies turning humans into lunch meat rather than love objects shouldn’t take this too hard. They’ve got new episodes of “The Walking Dead” coming soon.

Besides, what’s going to happen after the first zombie-human breakup?

A zombie on the hunt for dinner and revenge could be an awesome sight to behold.