When planning Horrorfest 2019, I decided to break up the tension and spookiness of all the horror movies by reserving Thursday of each themed week to watch a light-hearted horror comedy. For Zombie Week, that movie was Shaun of the Dead.
Shaun of the Dead is a cult classic: directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and star Simon Pegg, it tells the story of a man stuck in the rut of day-to-day life who is confronted by the zombie apocalypse. When all others have given up on him, Pegg’s character Shaun teams up with his best friend Ed (British comedy legend Nick Frost) to take out the zombies and save his family and recently broken-up girlfriend. The result is a hilarious ride that drives home what a regular person is capable of when confronted by responsibility and equipped with friendship and a good cricket bat.
Shaun of the Dead is British wit at its best. There’s a reason why Pegg and Frost team-up’s always result in success: Simon Pegg’s dry, sarcastic delivery paired with Frost’s penchant for the absurd pair beautifully to nail a zombie parody while still maintaining sweet themes of friendship and maturity. Don’t be surprised if you cry from both laughter and introspective sadness. But mostly laughter, honestly. The movie has some of my favorite visual gags in comedy, including the entire sequence when they first discover zombies. I will never get over seeing Frost and Pegg carefully finger through a collection of vinyls for appropriately crappy music to launch at the heads of approaching zombies.
Zombie Rating: Zombies in Shaun of the Dead are pretty run-of-the-mill zombie boys. Slow, shambling, stupid, and subpar fashion sense. However, any zombie that can co-op Timesplitters 2 with a bro earns extra credit from me. 3.5 barbed-wire baseball bats out of 5.
