Shaun of the Dead

Directed by: Edgar Wright

Starring: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis

Running Time: 99 minutes

Two friends, a pub and a bunch of zombies. That basically sums up this entire film. From start to finish it is a classic zombie horror film with a lot of humor. Two loyal friends wake up one day to find that zombies have overrun their town. From there they set out to protect themselves, their loved ones and the place they love… the pub.

This film is ripe with homages to classic zombie horror films by such heavyweights as George A. Romero and Sam Raimi. Similar to how the shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead shows how modern conveniences have turned us into walking dead, Shaun’s morning routine stays the same both before and after the transformation of the town’s residents. With so many references to other films and tributes from lines of dialogue to shots taken directly from both horror and film classics you can tell that this was written as a labor of love by Pegg and Wright.

I enjoyed the blend of dry British humor and the end of the world storyline. The jokes worked because everything came together so smoothly and nothing seemed forced. I think that if I came across a zombie in my backyard I would probably have the same sort of reaction that Shaun had. The one-liners between friends always generated a laugh. The violence always had a tinge of comedy to it so that no matter how many organs spilled out I could barely suppress a laugh. Also the running gags such as “You’ve got red on you” give a good balance to the air of gravity that these characters find themselves in.

This cast of virtual unknowns does a great job of creating characters and relationships that make you care what is going to happen to them. With horror movies you know the death toll is going to be high but this film creates a cast of characters that you are sorry to see go. Simon Pegg, Nick Frost (and director Edgar Wright) starred on the British show Spaced together and you can see this chemistry between them immediately on-screen. That relationships carries a lot of the comedy and drama throughout the entire film and gives it the feel of a buddy picture where you kind of want the guy to get the girl but want him to keep his buddy around too. The one recognizable actor, Lucy Davis of the original Office series has a good comic turn as a friend of Shaun’s girlfriend.

An amusing, sometimes funny, sometimes gory but always entertaining zombie film Shaun of the Dead definitely aims for the head.

Grade: A