a modern classic

Rating: 8/10 (11 April 2015)

Billed as a romantic comedy with zombies Shaun of the dead is a smart, funny British comedy starring geek icons Simon Pegg and Nick frost. The first part in the 'Blood and Ice Cream' trilogy, (the spiritual successors being Hot Fuzz and The Worlds End) the story concerns the titular Shaun who is every bit the everyman hero, he likes to spend his evenings in his local pub, the Winchester, with his best mate Ed and his girlfriend Liz unfortunately Liz wants more from life and dumps our hero then one drunken night he decides that he is going to get his life back on track, unfortunately for Shaun, the dead start to rise from their graves. So we have a sharply written relationship comedy against the backdrop of a full on zombie infestation. The jokes are good and the action sequences have a gritty feeling that they are routed in realism rather than overblown Hollywood shtick. The film lovingly references such grates as dawn of the dead and night of the living dead but the references are all subtle, blink-and-you'll-miss-it ones like The rifle they use in the Winchester is, naturally, a Winchester model 73 the same weapon used in both versions of 'Night of the Living Dead' and During the scene in which Ed (Nick Frost) yells into the phone, "We're coming to get you, Barbara," is a direct lift from Night of the Living Dead (1968) it's a film that has aged well, the effects still look current and by keeping pop cutler references so subtle it doesn't feel like a film that is eleven years old, part of the reason it still looks good is that they used real squibs rather than digital ones. Real blood squibs always look better. You actually care about Shaun and his life, despite the fact that on the surface he is such a loser, it feels like he is a real person and not a tired caricature of a loser. Even the ridiculous setting, a zombie epidemic, feels real and the way that the characters react to the situation are realistic there's no silly out of character moments and the whole movie flows wonderfully, it's a cliché to call it a non-stop-thrill-ride but it is, simply a well-made, well shot and well written film that keeps throwing jokes, awesome character pieces and even the odd heart breaking moment at you. In short the film dose everything right and very little wrong, if I had to find fault with the film it would be that some of the jokes are a bit subtle on the first viewing, but that is hardly a fault as the more times you watch the film the more you will get from it.