FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
SHAUN OF THE DEAD
As in George A. Romero's original Dawn of the Dead (1978), man-eating living corpses
run rampant through a suburban community, this time in Britain. Shaun (Simon Pegg), a
29-year-old electronics store employee, has just been dumped by longtime
girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) after she grows tired of his lack
of direction in life. Shaun spends most of his time with his best friend and roommate Ed
(Nick Frost). The two play video games all day and spend their nights getting
"pissed" at their favorite pub, the Winchester. After much foreshadowing,
the dead begin to roam the earth - and through Shaun and Ed's backyard.
Finally seeing the warning signs, the two set out to rescue their loved ones
and shack up in the place they love most - the Winchester.
Shaun of the Dead is first funny, then scary, and afterward
surprisingly sad. Star Simon Pegg and co-writer/director Edgar Wright make
these characters so absurdly lovable, that it is no laughing matter when one
after another falls victim to Z-Day (as the film calls it). The slang-ridden humor is
such that American audiences will have no problem getting the jokes,
a lot of which are partial to fans of Romero and the genre as a whole. And the film is casual
in its grimness as any zombie film you will find. There is as much bloodshed here as there are
punch lines.
DVD Extras: The best extras is a trio of plot holes, where
through narration and still drawings we are given the answers to some of the
film's most frequently asked questions. In “TV Bits,” an extended mock interview with the band
Coldplay
proves to be an unexpected treat as the group’s surviving members discuss
Zombaid, a post-apocalyptic relief effort. Interestingly, In Pegg’s video diary, the co-writers go through their
flip-chart storyboard over a year before the actual filming. It's amazing to
see how they managed to pull off almost all of their ideas. And the cast
commentary is reckless fun, as the stars compare their Bill Nighy and Al
Pacino impersonations while teasing a possible sequel - From Dusk Till
Shaun.
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