Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead is a playful spoof of George A. Romero’s zombie films. The late twentysomething human characters in the film are so self-centered and lazy that they hardly notice the flesh-eating zombies that infiltrate their section of North London. Shaun (Simon Pegg) is hung up on his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), who’s become increasingly disenfranchised with his lack of responsibility. He’s also stuck in a weird long-term friendship with his roommate and best friend, Ed (Nick Frost), a slob slacker who sits on the couch all day playing video games. When the zombies start laying siege upon Shaun’s home, he has to learn how to be a grown-up and take charge of his life.
That entails grabbing a racquet club and going into a Peter Jackson-style gore frenzy, smashing in zombie skulls and gutting out entrails. Wright and co-screenwriter Pegg treat this blood-fest as a middlebrow sitcom. A goofy supporting cast of survivors includes Liz’s snobby roommates, Shaun’s stepdad (Bill Nighy), and his well-intentioned mum (Penelope Wilton). Though it offers up some clever home-invasion sequences, Shaun of the Dead ultimately lacks for the visual wit of Jackson’s Dead Alive or Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy. The filmmakers pull no punches when it comes to splatter, but they constantly dilute it by having the characters offer cheeky one-liners or, in effect, wink at the audience.
When the humans attempt to wander through the town pretending to be zombies, shuffling their feet and moaning, the scene contradicts the Dead world so completely that fans are sure to throw up their hands in frustration. The constant stream of in-jokes (references to Romero’s films, as well as a jab at 28 Days Later) quickly grows tiresome. Shaun of the Dead is a mixed bag: outstanding scare set pieces like having the heroes trapped in the backseat of their car because the stepfather has refused to take off the childproof locks, followed by goofball “who’s on first” antics by the bickering leads. Simultaneously evoking the films of Romero, Mel Brooks, and Ben Stiller, this is an amusing but inconsistent marriage made in hell.
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