Kevin Smith + 28 Days Later="Shaun of the Dead."

Rating: 8/10 (10 May 2007)

I rarely watch horror movies, and that is a personal precedent that might be given leeway now, thanks to "Shaun of the Dead." With memorable characters, subtle humor, genuine emotive scenes and conversations, and a jovial hell-bent fight scene involving a man beating a zombie to death while Queen plays on the jukebox cements this new twist on the slacker comedy as creative and ground-breaking (even though this has been done before in my other favorite horror movie, "Idle Hands"; Oh, well. I guess the phrase, "great minds think alike" is true). "Shaun of the Dead" is blessed (and armed) with an almost-original script, deft direction, and the show stealer of the movie, Nick Frost, who plays the fat sloth-like pothead. Sure, the last third of the movie may drag on, but I have had a rewarding time watching the shrewdness of the crises between the characters and the Laurel & Hardy chemistry between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I guess I can see now why the British are better at executing films than us. They rely on knowledge and inside jokes, while we utilize recycled toilet humor. Damn, we suck. But that's a different story for a different time.
Simon Pegg plays a slacker named Shaun who is definitely in dire straits, and has an idyllic, boring, unfulfilling life for the time being. What happens to Shaun is enough to make an average guy depressed. His girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield) dumps him; he has a sour relationship with his stepfather (Bill Nighy), a tense roommate who can't stand his pathetic friend (Nick Frost), a dismal job, and the icing of the cake is fighting zombies. During the tenure of the weekend, a zombie outbreak spreads (with Shaun and everyone he knows, totally oblivious to the matter, which is pretty clever, considering that the director, Edgar Wright, has put so much dramatic irony and clues leading up to what happens next), and Shaun and his friend, Ed (Nick Frost) don't figure it out until one of the outbreak victims show up at the flat. After the guys finish killing the zombies invading the fort, they try to save their friends and family, with dire straits happening now and then, usually antagonized by Liz's friend, an arrogant oaf named David (Dylan Moran).
Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's screenplay is gifted in the way that they shape out Shaun's character, by using the "zombie plot" as the backdrop of him changing as a person. In the beginning of the film, you would assume that Shaun is really irresponsible, and that he was just like a character in a sitcom that doesn't really make a change or develop until the last season. But, the way Wright and Pegg make use of the plot to change Shaun is beyond belief. If the plot centered on something else, Shaun wouldn't have come to amends with his stepfather or find out about the nature of David and why he's acting like such a tool towards him. The film also fares well in its dramatic shift of tone and genre when the ragtag team tries to find fortress in the town pub. I guess that what stands out in "SOTD" for me, is the relationship between Frost and Pegg. When these two are paired up together (primarily in conversations), there's no end to all the absurd shtick that Frost provides and the levelheaded answers that Pegg would give him. All in all, there are many other qualities that make "SOTD" one of the coolest cult flicks (including Deer Hunter and the Dead series references) ever, and it's everything you'll ever want in a movie. It's a pulsating horror movie (at least three or four parts), an enigmatic look on people who find out more about themselves in midst of danger, and a straightforward, riotous comedy.