Shaun of the Dead (2004) Review

Shaun of the Dead is a horror comedy taking place in London. It stars Simon Pegg as Shaun, Kate Ashfield as Liz, and Nick Frost as Ed.

Shaun is a lazy, unambitious young man who lives with his best friends Ed and Pete. He is always hanging out at the local pub, The Winchester, with Ed and Shaun's girlfriend Liz. But Liz wants more intimacy and variety in their relationship. So Shaun promises a romantic dinner with just the two of them. But when he forgets to book the reservations, he suggests going to The Winchester instead. She promptly breaks up with him. That night, he goes there with Ed and gets drunk. The next morning Shaun is too hung over to notice that London has been taken over by flesh-eating zombies. When he and Ed finally realize what is going on, they devise a plan to pick up Shaun's mom and step dad, along with Liz and her roommates, and seek out the safety of The Winchester.

This film manages to successfully combine zombies with slapstick humor. Ed and Shaun make a hilarious zombie-fighting duo early in the story. The first ones they encounter, they attempt unsuccessfully to fight off by throwing anything they can find. Their slow thinking makes for a humorous scene.

One particularly ironic scene was when Shaun, too hungover to realize what was happening around him, was walking to the nearby store with the dead all around him. He was so oblivious that he himself could have been mistaken for a zombie. Although not one of the film's most well-known scenes, this was probably one of the funniest of all.

Despite being an obvious spoof, which are traditionally not well received by movie critics, Shaun of the Dead was actually praised by movie masters Quentin Tarantino, Stephen King, and George Romero, whose classic Dawn of the Dead was clearly an inspiration for this film. In fact, Romero was so impressed that he offered the writers, Pegg and Edgar Wright, cameo roles in his new zombie movie Land of the Dead.

To wrap, Shaun of the Dead is a film that both zombie and comedy lovers alike will enjoy.

Kevin T. Dillehay has written more than 100 movie reviews from all genres. He provides a unique perspective on the movies you see all the time but may not stop and think about in depth.