Dawn of the Zom-Rom-Com
Zombies—they seem to be everywhere today. And among the current living dead trend, Shaun of the Dead is the very best. It's both a smart satire and a scary zombie movie in its own right. It's also something completely new at the same time—a romantic comedy with a horror twist.
We've seen the set up before. A strange plague comes to earth—this time from space—infecting the living and the dead, turning them into gut ripping, brain eating zombies. But all this is happening while the blissfully unaware Shaun (Simon Pegg) is trying to salvage his relationship with his long-term girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). When he and ne'er-do-well buddy Ed (Nick Frost) realize what's happening, Shaun concocts a plan to save Liz and Shaun's mum Barbara (Penelope Wilton) and wait out the emergency in the local pub.
While we've seen horror movie send-ups before ranging from Young Frankenstein to the Scary Movie franchise, what makes Shaun of the Dead work so brilliantly is the fact that the cast play their goofy characters straight, reacting the way any working class Northern Londoner would—avoid the brain sucking zombies as best as humanly possible.
Though Shaun of the Dead is an effective zombie picture, it is an even better satire, showing, for instance, how Shaun is unaware of the grossing zombie problem because most of the working class stiffs around him act like the shuffling undead already. Writers Pegg and Edgar Wright, who also directed, have a good time playing with how the zombie crisis transforms Shaun from a nebbish assistant manager at an electronics store into a zombie fighter, but never letting us forget that the guy is really just an assistant manager responding to a crisis.
They also take on other class targets such as the unctuous intellectual (Dylan Moran), the ambitious, if talentless actress (Lucy Davis), and the English reserve in the face of a crisis. The terrific end shows a very novel approach to solving a zombie crisis—but again making fun of the European penchant for multiculturalism.
Shaun of the Dead is also a rather sweet romantic comedy with a hero who is genuinely in love with his girlfriend, mum and best friend, and does his best to save all of them. This is probably the first horror movie in history that almost demands bringing a date to.
On top of all the blood and guts, the movie has loads of laugh out loud comedy as well. One funny bit involves our heroes having to disguise themselves as zombies, and there are several swipes taken at other recent zombie movies. There are also several fart jokes, which for the first time since Blazing Saddles 30 years ago are actually funny.
The cast is likeable, even Frost's brutish Ed, who is really just a big teddy bear, and the chemistry between Pegg and Ashfield works well towards putting the "rom" in "zom-rom-com."
The pacing is a little choppy at times, particularly in the beginning, which spends a lot of time setting up the situation, and the accents and some cultural references are a bit hard to fathom at times. But those are quibbles. Shaun of the Dead is one of the best movies of the season.
We've seen the set up before. A strange plague comes to earth—this time from space—infecting the living and the dead, turning them into gut ripping, brain eating zombies. But all this is happening while the blissfully unaware Shaun (Simon Pegg) is trying to salvage his relationship with his long-term girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). When he and ne'er-do-well buddy Ed (Nick Frost) realize what's happening, Shaun concocts a plan to save Liz and Shaun's mum Barbara (Penelope Wilton) and wait out the emergency in the local pub.
While we've seen horror movie send-ups before ranging from Young Frankenstein to the Scary Movie franchise, what makes Shaun of the Dead work so brilliantly is the fact that the cast play their goofy characters straight, reacting the way any working class Northern Londoner would—avoid the brain sucking zombies as best as humanly possible.
Though Shaun of the Dead is an effective zombie picture, it is an even better satire, showing, for instance, how Shaun is unaware of the grossing zombie problem because most of the working class stiffs around him act like the shuffling undead already. Writers Pegg and Edgar Wright, who also directed, have a good time playing with how the zombie crisis transforms Shaun from a nebbish assistant manager at an electronics store into a zombie fighter, but never letting us forget that the guy is really just an assistant manager responding to a crisis.
They also take on other class targets such as the unctuous intellectual (Dylan Moran), the ambitious, if talentless actress (Lucy Davis), and the English reserve in the face of a crisis. The terrific end shows a very novel approach to solving a zombie crisis—but again making fun of the European penchant for multiculturalism.
Shaun of the Dead is also a rather sweet romantic comedy with a hero who is genuinely in love with his girlfriend, mum and best friend, and does his best to save all of them. This is probably the first horror movie in history that almost demands bringing a date to.
On top of all the blood and guts, the movie has loads of laugh out loud comedy as well. One funny bit involves our heroes having to disguise themselves as zombies, and there are several swipes taken at other recent zombie movies. There are also several fart jokes, which for the first time since Blazing Saddles 30 years ago are actually funny.
The cast is likeable, even Frost's brutish Ed, who is really just a big teddy bear, and the chemistry between Pegg and Ashfield works well towards putting the "rom" in "zom-rom-com."
The pacing is a little choppy at times, particularly in the beginning, which spends a lot of time setting up the situation, and the accents and some cultural references are a bit hard to fathom at times. But those are quibbles. Shaun of the Dead is one of the best movies of the season.
