slightly genre-confused, but still a good comedy/horror show

Rating: 7/10 (21 April 2007)

Shaun of the Dead has 2/3 of the most ingenious British comedy of 2004, or for that matter the past several years, and even has that appeal that romantic comedies only wish they could achieve in their timing and believable characters, however slacker-ish they are here. Then there's something interesting that goes on as Edgar Wright gets enveloped in making a pure zombie movie, and, for me, odd as it sounds, it doesn't totally work. I could understand why the shift comes, as danger looms in with the un-dead taking over the British village Pegg and Frost have to defend at all costs. At the same time, it's not quite as fulfilling as the razor-sharp satire and visual wackiness that went on in the main chunk of the picture. This being said, it's the kind of "cult" movie that works at its best because it feeds off of said previous "cult" movies like a flesh-eater on an intestinal tract; it knows how stupid it would be, however entertaining in an abstract way, if the un-dead started to rise and took over a little town or suburb or other. "Let's go to the pub" isn't too far of a stretch for these guys as the mall was in Dawn of the Dead.
As it stands, from having seen the film quite a while ago, it stays fresh in your mind for a while, for what works wonderfully in its violent and absent-minded glory (hmm, what's really going on here, is the tone for the first part), as well as a plum supporting role from Bill Nighy, and from what doesn't quite work. The last section, unfortunately, doesn't quite strike up the same level of delirious humor that it should, and ironically compared to the original Dawn of the Dead's last section, it's dead-pan without being hilarious, and just a straight-forward horror-fest. Which is fine, but the shift is sort of jarring and something that I didn't think quite recovered by the end of the film, albeit with the nice wink in the final shot. It's the kind of good British comedy that works best with a bunch of friends and a totally tuned-in sense of humor...or, perhaps, just someone looking for a different level of social satire with their zombie movie.