Shaun of the Dead (2004)

There are two directors; both of them are British, and I trust them completely, to the point that no matter what they do, I will watch it. These two directors are Duncan Jones and Edgar Wright. Neither of them has made anything bad. Duncan Jones made Moon and Source Code, both of which rock. But this review is about an Edgar Wright movie, so I’ll talk about him. Before he made Shaun of the Dead, Edgar Wright directed Spaced, which is one of the best series I have ever seen, along the lines of Community and Arrested Development. After, he made Hot Fuzz, the second third of the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy, a series of films directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The third film has not been scripted yet, and during the gap, Edgar Wright directed my favorite film of all time, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Shaun of the Dead stars Simon Pegg as a slacker named Shaun who just broke up with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) and has a slacker best friend and roommate Ed (Nick Frost). Shaun’s life is not that great. And just when you hit rock bottom, someone hands you a shovel…to hit a zombie in the face with. The zombie apocalypse has just hit Britain, and Shaun wants to live. Also, there is a small cameo from the main actress from Spaced, which also starred Pegg and Frost, Jessica Stevenson (or Jessica Hynes, her official name now. I was just using her name before she was married which was after the filming of the movie). From the advertisements, the creative team, and everything I’ve heard, I went into Shaun of the Dead expecting a full-on zombie comedy, in the tone of Zombieland. And for the first half of the film, I got that. And when the climax started to form, the film became a LOT heavier than it was supposed to. It started to feel like one of the George A. Romero greats that the film was supposedly parodying. It was emotional, and dealt with character deterioration. I’m going to try to say this without spoilers, but it’s kind of hard, so be warned…the end to some of these characters was really sad, and felt like a great zombie movie like Night of the Living Dead, but it just didn’t belong in a British zombie comedy. The film works, and I do love it to death, but it is a lot heavier than you would think.
9/10