Shaun of the Dead (2004) Review
Shaun of the Dead is a horror comedy that takes place in London. It stars Simon Pegg as Shaun, Kate Ashfield as Liz, and Nick Frost as Ed.
Shaun is a lazy and unambitious young man who lives with his best friends Ed and Pete. He’s 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. Then Shaun promises a romantic dinner with just the two of them. But when you forget to make reservations, he suggests going to The Winchester. She quickly breaks up with him. That night, he goes there with Ed and gets drunk. The next morning, Shaun is too hungover to realize that London has been invaded by carnivorous zombies. When he and Ed finally figure out what’s going on, they read a plan to pick up Shaun’s mom and stepfather, along with Liz and her roommates, and seek the safety of The Winchester.
This film manages to successfully combine zombies with antics humor. Ed and Shaun form a fun zombie-fighting duo early in the story. The first to find them, they try, unsuccessfully, to fight by throwing away whatever they can find. His slow thinking creates a humorous scene.
One particularly ironic scene was when Shaun, too hungover to realize what was happening around him, was walking towards the nearby store with the dead around him. He was so unconscious that he himself could have been mistaken for a zombie. Although it is not one of the best known scenes in the movie, this was probably one of the funniest of all.
Despite being an obvious parody, traditionally not well received by film critics, Shaun of the Dead was praised by film masters Quentin Tarantino, Stephen King, and George Romero, whose classic Dawn of the Dead was clearly an inspiration. for this movie. 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.
In closing, Shaun of the Dead is a movie that both zombie and comedy lovers will enjoy.
