Very funny until it runs out of steam

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2005)

There's no doubt this entertaining British comedy has all the makings of becoming a cult hit, much like the George A. Romero horror films that it pays homage to.
Writers Simon Pegg (who also stars) and Edgar Wright (who also directs) clearly have a lot fun with this story. There are several moments of truly inspired comedy and understated wit. Much of the comedy here works because the actors take themselves seriously. They treat as very real the situations in which their characters get thrown into.
What's clever about this film is that it doesn't come off as a pure spoof of horror films. That would be easy. Too easy. Instead, this is a horror film, but comes packed with laughs.
The best jokes, actually, have little or nothing to do with the zombies and everything to do with Shaun and his friends.
Pegg's ideal as Shaun, a lumbering, clueless twenty-something who works at an electronic store where he's quite possibly the oldest employee. His best friend Ed (Nick Frost) lives on Shaun's couch and plays video games all day. Which is what Shaun would love to do, too, but he can't because his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), wants him to do more with his life.
Some of the comedy is very inspired. Some comedic moments actually have layers to them. For instance, when Shaun and Ed throw Shaun's LP record collection at the zombies. That scene would have worked as it is. But Pegg and Wright add another layer by having the two chaps take time to discuss which records are worth tossing.
And then there's the moment when Shaun, hungover, walks through his neighborhood oblivious to what's happening around him. He's such a creature of habit that he doesn't notice obvious signs of something gone horribly pear-shaped.
Unfortunately, Pegg and Wright can't sustain their comedy throughout. The film falters in the final act when Pegg and Wright literally write themselves into a corner. The film suddenly turns into a straight zombie-horror film right out of Romero's handbook. By placing their characters in an untenable situation, a place from where there's little chance of escaping, the story falls into all the conventional traps of the genre. And it's nothing we haven't seen before, right down to characters standing by windows just waiting to be yanked away by zombies.
The flaw in the third act is that Pegg and Wright forgot they're making a comedy. Frankly, zombies aren't all that interesting as movie characters. Shaun and his buddies are. But turning the film into a standard zombie film wasn't the right thing to do. Not only does it bring the comedy to a screeching halt, it also makes the film drag. Even at a mere 99 minutes, this film feels about 10-15 minutes too long.
However, the first two-thirds of the film are awfully funny. It's dry, bold and inventive. Too bad, Pegg and Wright just didn't have enough for a better denouement.