Shaun_Dead

SHAUN

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OF THE

D E A D

Rated: R- Zombie Violence/Gore and Language

    In 1967, George Romero shocked the world with his cult classic �Night of the Living Dead�, deemed by many to be the first real zombie film. He followed up with that a decade later with the brilliant �Dawn of the Dead�, a film that epitomizes great horror filmmaking. The mid-eighties brought �Day of the Dead� � the most realistically gory of the three. In 1990, Tom Savini remade �Night� unsuccessfully; made a mockery of it, really. In 2002, the movie version of the game �Resident Evil� hit theatres, and its sequel �Apocalypse� ripped it to shreds last month. Last year, �House of the Dead� (another movie-based-on-game) made me angry that I spent money renting it, and �28 Days Later� became one of the best shock horror films of 2003. Before summer this year, the satisfying remake of �Dawn of the Dead� made its way to the big screen.
      If you haven�t noticed, zombies rule. That has a double standard to it. Not only have zombies nearly taken over the horror genre, but they really are brilliant ghouls. Their bloody, disgusting faces and torn, dismembered limbs have splattered the movies for over forty years, and it reached a peak the last three years. This is zombie mania.
      But through that mish mash of great, okay, and horrible comes a sigh of relief... �Shaun of the Dead�. This is a film that spoofs, makes fun of, relishes, and honors those great horror shows of the past on levels that I never thought possible. It mocks them, yes, but it sort of becomes a monument to them � something to remember them by.
      And yet, it�s hilarious; a comedy that works, and works well. We begin with Shaun (Simon Pegg) and his apartment buddy Ed (Nick Frost). Ed is a fat solvent that who sits home all day eating and playing video games. Shaun is a joke of a business man who tries to make everyone happy, but ends up disappointing them � and Ed is no help. He forgets to make reservations for his girlfriend�s anniversary; he forgets to buy his mother flowers for Mother�s Day. He can�t remember anything when it comes to others, so when his girlfriend leaves him, he�s crushed.
      Because of all this awful stuff that keeps happening, he and Ed are totally oblivious to the outside world � which is swiftly infesting with living dead. In one the funniest scenes of the film, Shaun wakes up after being drunk all night and decides to walk to the store to get a soda and some ice cream in hopes that he�ll wake up. The camera follows him from his house to the store and all the way back to his house again in one single take (a masterful directing example on the part of Edgar Wright). On the way, he mostly slumps along: tired and not caring. What he fails to notice are lurching dead people walking the streets, car alarms are going off in the distance, bloody messes are on the sidewalk.
       Pegg and Wright wrote this together and did a splendid job. It takes awhile to build up, but when it does, the laughs don�t stop. That is, until the third act of the film sets itself into motion. In order to survive, Shaun leads his mother and friends to a pub downtown, hoping that the zombies won�t harm them. (How they get there is also very funny). But when they arrive, it is more serious than slapstick. However, I don�t consider this a hindrance. Wright shows he can handle mass hysteria and intenseness, and is excellent with horror violence. This has brilliant special effects, reminiscent of Savini.
      Always witty and almost always hilarious, �Shaun of the Dead� is an original if not inspired film with a lot of heart and a lot of soul. And hey, even if you didn�t think it was funny, this is a great zombie horror film just the way it is. *** �

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