Tuesday 5 June 2012

Shaun of The Dead

"Shaun of The Dead" (2004, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Universal Pictures) is a zombie comedy with a difference; it's modern day En-ger-land-shire to the max! And it stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy, Jessica Stevenson, Martin Freeman.... etc, etc... Really, very awesome!

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a no good, lazy, loser working in a non-job in London, living with his loser, lazy, no good buddy, Ed (Nick Frost). They game, they smoke, they drink in the local; The Winchester. That's about it.

Shaun's long-suffering girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), dumps him due to his disinterest and complete lack of life-lustre. Shaun eventually realises he's heartbroken, and decides to do something about his life. Unfortunately, a zombie apocalypse gets in the way. Luckily, he's seen enough zombie flicks and played enough "Resident Evil" to use this to his advantage.

Once he and Ed finally realise it is a zombie apocalypse, they decide to come up with a cunning plan; get Liz, get Shaun's parents, get their friends and then to the local pub. Obviously, I mean, that's where I'd go!

Comedy gore is really fun, and this film has buckets of it. I especially enjoy Dylan Moran's exit. But it's not all guts and blood gags, the scene where Shaun wanders back from the shops, unaware that he is surrounded by undead (because that easily could be any day in London!) is really quite haunting! Living in a city myself, I realised I could quite easily do the same thing; earphones in, eyes ahead, and march to Rufus T Firefly's bar!... Wait... was that a zombie? Nah! Crazy person!

The usual themes of group arguments, power struggles, panicky people making dumb moves and interesting weaponry are all paid homage to, and the humour is British, but not so much that you have to be British to get it.

A fun filled nod to the zombie genre made and acted by people who are themselves, fans of the genre. Nicely rounded off with no reason for the zombie outbreak (Liz keeps switching channels just as this is about to be revealed), and a happy ending, with zombies!

[Picture: Universal Pictures]

Hani

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