What It's About:
Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a 29 year old British audio/video store manager with a dead-end life spent playing videos games with his stoner best friend roommate Ed (Nick Frost), and spending each night in the Winchester Pub downing pints and shunning responsibility and ambition.
On a very special Saturday, Shaun’s girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) dumps him, he has a shitty day at work, sees a few strange incidents with people on the streets during the day, gets completely wasted with Ed at the Winchester Pub during the night, and wakes up the next day hung over and oblivous to the fact that his whole town has been over run by zombies.
Shaun decides to use this zombie invasion as a chance to win back his girlfriend, reestablish his relationship with his mother, and take control of his life.
If you’ve been craving a “romcomzom” (Romantic Comedy Zombie) flick, then go check out Shaun of the Dead!
Review:
What would I have expected from a romantic comedy zombie movie? A big mess, that’s what! Who the hell thought up such a silly concept in the first place?
Well, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, that’s who! But I digress…
Once you get over the initial shock of such an asinine concept, you then start to think that it could work, but it would take a very tentative balance between the radically different genre switch from romantic comedy to ZOMBIE movie to pull it all off.
Shaun of the Dead was able to accomplish this scary task with surprising ease.
If you’re a fan of horror movies (like me) – especially zombie movies (I guess you can count me in there, too) – then you’ll get a kick out of the many nods to other zombie flicks, especially George Romero’s Living Dead saga… there are tons of references! There’s a bit of Fulci in there too (don’t blink during the phone book’s Fulci’s Restaurant shot!), as well as Peter Jackson, Tarantino, Rodriguez, Raimi, and others… I did a lot of single breathed ‘HA!'-ing and sported many little grins throughout!
The most impressive shot sequence was actually the first shot they did for the movie. It’s the steadi-cam tracking shot when Shaun wakes up Sunday morning hung over, and doesn’t notice that the neighborhood is in a shambles, and everyone around him is a slow-walking Romero-inspired zombie. Great sequence! All I would have done was remove the bloody handprints on the fridge window when he gets a Coke... or, at least, lower the handprints below Shaun's eye level. Small complaint, I know.
As for the performances, everyone does an excellent job! Shaun and Ed are the main attractions, but all the supporting characters were great as well. I especially enjoyed Bill Nighy as Shaun’s step-dad; he was was one cooky and funny bastard! Having an acceptable level of likeability for most of the main characters was a good way of keeping my attention and giving me some good laughs along the way.
They worked real hard at making a lot of stuff happen in the background as well, especially before Shaun and Ed realize they're surrounded by zombies. The background actions weren’t so obvious that it over took the foreground (ie, as in Zucker comedies), so you could still pay attention to what was going on at the same time.
The main issue I had with Shaun was some of the major gags that played a little too long. The record-throwing sequence was funny, but should have been cut a little short. I love Queen, but the broom-smacking Winchester Pub scene with Queen playing went on WAAAAYYY TOOOO long.
I also didn’t like how a few of the characters were snuffed off for the most stupid reasons. The zombies walk at 2 miles per hour, yet they refuse to move out of the way in time… I know it’s partly an homage to how the older zombie movies did the same thing, but come ON!!
One particular character in the Winchester Pub near the end had no REASON for being bitten and turning into a zombie!! He/she should have been snuffed into zombie form in a much more plausible way!
There were even a few sappy moments. There were a couple of final death scene speeches which managed to be a little touching, but didn't make me roll my eyes.
All in all, I had a great time with Shaun of the Dead, and it worked well at balancing out the genres, had a really fun soundtrack, some beautiful gore, great looking zombies, and was a great way to spend an hour and a half of my life! I wouldn’t say don’t see it, because it’s a lot of fun!
I liked the ending, too.
Grade: B
The UK DVD has a buttload of extras, including 4 commentaries, extended/deleted scenes (including a PLOT HOLES fill-in, haha), behind-the-scenes featurettes, diary entries, storyboards... and they're all entertaining for the most part! If you got the means for purchase and viewing, I suggest you pick it up!
Reviewed: 9/19/04