(2004) ****
Shaun is your everyman slacker Brit: basic retail job, girlfriend who wants more from life, best friend Ed who is content to deal a little weed, play video games, and live off of his friends. Not a bad life, perhaps, but everything is about to change. There are signs of zombies almost from minute one of the movie, and the zombie presence builds steadily and inexorably. Despite omnipresent actual zombies and warnings about zombies, it takes Shaun and Ed a good third of the movie to even notice anything is wrong. Act 1 is clearly more comedy than zombie movie; act 2 is a blend of horror and comedy; act 3 we get our full-out zombie fix.
I just love this movie. The comedy really works for me, and I do care about the characters. The plot adheres to many of the zombie rules (these are deliciously slow-moving zombies). There is a satisfying amount of gore and loss and action and sacrifice. We even get a feel-good ending (sort of).
No-one else who has reviewed Shaun of the Dead for Horrorthon to date has liked it as much as I do; oh well! This is about as good as comedy/zombie movies can be, at least until we can get Christopher Guest to direct a mockumentary on the making of a low-budget Romero ripoff/homage.
8 comments:
I could have given this a four star rating. I think I was being a little cautious as it was my first movie.
I agree with you!
I watchedthis movie when I was sick on the couch with a cold, and it made me laugh and feel better.
JPX, JSP and I all screened this when it came out October 2004. I gave it four and a half stars, which I'm pretty sure was higher than the other two gave it (I found my review but I'm too lazy to look for theirs).
Love this movie.
"Player two has entered the game."
"Don't you have work?"
"Player two has left the game."
This movie is totally awesome. By the way, has anyone else heard the rumors that Simon Pegg is playing Scotty in J. J. Abrams' Star Trek movie?
i stand corrected! glad others have enjoyed it too.
I heard those Star Trek rumors, and many others including the guy they cast as Kirk. I've held off mentioning anything until post Horrorthon.
I liked Shaun of the Dead. Before it came out it was heavily hyped and I remember being slightly disappointed when I finally screened it. It's still a solid, funny film though, don't get me wrong.
I'm officially changing my rating to ****1/2. I also was disappointed after the incessant hype. But after watching it several times since I think the hype was well deserved. We'll be watching this one twenty years from now.
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