Shaun of the Dead Review

Shaun of the Dead is a 2004 zombie comedy written/directed by Edgar Wright and cowritten by Simon Pegg. The film is the first of the cult classic Cornetto Trilogy, which also includes Hot Fuzz and The World's End. The film has gained a cult following since its release and garnered a reputation as a newer Halloween classic.



Story

The lives of two slacker idiots (Simon Pegg/Nick Frost) are thrown out of balance when their quiet suburban town is affected by a zombie outbreak. Now, armed with a shovel and a cricket bat, they must use what few wits they have to keep themselves and their group of friends alive to make it to their local pub to wait out the apocalypse.



I've gone on record saying that Edgar Wright movies aren't my favorite in the world. A lot of times they don't really make me laugh and that's a problem when you're looking at a comedy. The jokes he tries to tell always seem like the most obvious jokes you could possibly tell in any given circumstance. I am baffled by the fact that the most popular running joke of the entire trilogy is a fence falling over. Really? You do know Looney Tunes as well as hundreds of other physical comics have done several variations on this joke to much greater effect, right? That being said, Shaun of the Dead is the first Edgar Wright movie I've actually enjoyed and I think the reason is that there's a lot of absurd, character-based comedy. It also comes from the fact that even without the comedy, you'd still have an entertaining zombie flick, with high stakes, good tension, quick pacing and more action than your typical zombie movie.



What makes the comedy as well as the film work are the two main characters, Shaun and Ed, mainly because their lazy, uninvolved personalities lead to all the best jokes in the film. For example, when the zombie apocalypse is first starting, they don't even notice because there usually isn't anything to notice in their lives. There's always the same thing on TV so there's no need to watch the news. It's always the same people doing the same things on the same street, so there's no need to look around. It's also amusing to watch them try to find weapons to fight the zombies with. For example, there's a scene where they're throwing records at the zombies to pierce their skulls, but they have to watch what they throw because there are some they want to keep. There are ton of jokes like that throughout the movie and they always land.



There's surprising remnants of social commentary hidden deep underneath the gore and humor. Before the zombies come, Shaun's life in the suburbs is frightfully dull and repetitive and he struggles to go above and beyond his entrance level job to impress his girlfriend. However, it's only through having to survive the apocalypse that Shaun realizes his full potential and rises above what he was before. It took the dead to make things a bit lively around here.



Technical

The first thing you'll notice in any Edgar Wright film is the editing. He is so precise with how he cuts certain lines, camera movements and blocking all around how the film is editing. It's kinetic and energized, keeping you engaged all the way through.



Wright also uses blocking to tell a joke, even if the joke isn't that funny. The one example I can remember is when Shaun's group of survivors come across another group of survivors. The blocking of the actors combined with the colors of their costumes suggest that there are the same types of people in every group. I didn't really get the joke. Is it some kind of piss-take of the kinds of people that are in a zombie apocalypse squad in every movie? If so, I couldn't tell because I haven't seen that many zombie movies.



The acting is pretty good, especially from Simon Pegg who has to go through some really emotional moments in the last third. Him and Nick Frost play off each other really well, with Pegg as the straight man and Frost as the lazy eccentric, and they both have solid comedic timing, making them probably the best comedy duo to come along in a while.



Summary: Shaun of the Dead isn't for everybody and your milage will very depending on how much you like British comedy, satire and a healthy, but not unbearable, amount of gore. As for myself, I had a lot of fun with it and would call it the best of the Edgar Wright movies I've seen so far. It's a great Halloween treat that you should take a bite out of.