Not wholly successful but a solid horror with laughs - fans of Spaced, Black Books etc will love it!

Rating: Null/10 (10 April 2004)

Shaun is in his late twenties and works in a electrical store with teenagers. He hangs out with his slobbish friend and spends every evening in the Winchester pub. Fed up with this, his girlfriend dumps him, leaving him with the words of his other flatmate ringing in his ears - `sort your life out'. His plans take an unexpected turn when he and Ed eventually notice that London's populace has mostly given into a virus that turns them into, well, the Z word. Shaun and Ed devise a plan to keep safe and rescue Shaun's mother and ex.
Although the makers were cursing themselves for the unfortunate timing of this film's release with the (much bigger budget) remake of Dawn of the Dead - however for me this served as a rather nice experience after the straight-scares of Dawn. A point to note for all those moaners, is that this film went into production before the remake did. Anyway, ignoring this issue it is important to note that the film is a very British affair and is aimed at a very particular sense of humour. In essence, if you love Spaced then you'll enjoy this. The film is NOT a spoof - it is a horror movie with laughs, not unlike Evil Dead in that regard. The gags are good but not as fast as Spaced fans will be used to - instead they are put in with the horror rather than being forced over the top of it.
The film has movie references, but not to the point where they become the gags themselves (Spaced's cutaways for example). In place of that we have references to Deer Hunter and The Matrix that are funny but will not spoil things for you if you don't spot them. I laughed throughout but it is important not to expect to be rolling in the aisles - the film is still a horror, not a Naked Gun style spoof.
As a horror, the film is not really scary but does have a good gutful of gore to go around. The zombies are slow, and this will not work for modern audiences, but it does hark back to the old zombie flicks and also allows the material to work. I closed my eyes a few times as the film provided blood, and it does have the odd moment that is touching. Of course the laughs are everything and, aside from a slow start and a more horror-focused ending, this is consistently funny.
The one thing that it also does well is have a slight satirical edge to it. It is delivered rather heavily (early scenes of hooded youths lumbering around force the point home too heavily) but it is still true - having done my shopping in Asda just before seeing this film I can definitely contest that many of us lumber around in a semi-trance! This is a nice touch - the Dawn remake lacked any of the comment that it's original made, so it is good to have some here. Again however, non-Brits may not totally pick up on this as we seem to be one of the few countries that has this pub-orientated culture.
The cast are great and will be full of faces recognisable from the TV series that this film will draw the majority of it's fans from. Pegg is great, he is a slightly more advanced version of his Spaced character and he makes for a good leading character simply because he is so recognisable - this is not a Hollywood film with characters we don't know, but instead a bloke from a pub. Despite the fact that I would hate Ed in real life, Frost is hilariously exaggerated. He looks very different from Spaced but he does well with the material. Ashfield is spunky and the only downside to her is that she would never be with Shaun in the first place. Support is good from Moran, Davis and Nighy. There are plenty of in-jokes for fans, including a great cameo from Stevenson, who also shows up with her own group of friends that mirror Shaun's friends in terms of looks and (pretty much) TV series background (eg Tim from the Office and Fran from Black Books).
Overall this will not please everyone and I fear that some will not laugh as much as the adverts and hype suggested. However it is a good horror comedy and easily the best British film of the year so far - fans of Spaced will notice the joke rate is scaled back but it is still very funny. The humour of Spaced has reached the big screen and is doing good things for the British cinema industry. The makers said they threw so much into the film (horror, comedy, romance, drama, gore) because they didn't think they would be allowed to make another film - I hope to god that is not the case.