The best Z-word--movie ever, closer to you than it ever was!

Rating: 10/10 (20 May 2006)

Some movies just perfectly fit one genre, so that they finally overwhelm it...This is here the case, just as "the good, the bad and the ugly" is more than just the best western-movie ever... "Shaun of the dead" uses the symbolics of the zombie invasion as it was used in the first Romero's : we're all already dead folks, as far as modern life is concerned(OK, I promise I won't talk about symbolism anymore...)...Thus, plus the fact that all of this is done in a really funny and genre-respectful way! Shaun is something like an impossible crossover between the Z-movie and the 30like sitcom, with a 30like yo hero stuck in a store selling TV sets alongside with dull acneic teens thinking (and telling) he's a loser...By the time he realizes the world is being invaded by man-eating zombies, his girlfriend drops him out, which seems to be far more uneasy for him to accept than the rest... If you add the fact that it's always flipping between the rawest comedy and the harshest drama, things are beginning to get really good for you viewer, as the more you laugh, the more the characters get sympathetic, and the more you get really touched by what happens to them (as opposed, for example, to the fact that we don't give a f*ck about whatever happens to Neo in Matrix...).This is a brilliantly efficient way to keep you concerned and surprised from the beginning to the end. Another trick used to get you wondering what you might do might it happen to you (and yes you wonder, even if you rationally know that this won't happen...) is what I call the proximity-FX, having a hero so ordinary, his best friend selling weed and playing VG all day long, and a goal twisting between avoiding to be eaten alive and getting the girlfriend back...In this category enters something you in the US probably won't feel as much as we do in Europe: you're used to see your streets filled with Dodge and Chrysler exploding while being chased by crazy-machine-gunslinging choppers (this is America, I saw it on TV!), but we're not! And I admit that seeing anyone trying to flee away from a zombie-horde in a red renault Megane definitely gives me the creeps, as this is one car I may actually use if I ever have to do it myself! Go and run to your video-store if you had'n't seen it yet as anything in this movie is perfect: the whole cast (the dead-in-his-heart employee-of-the-month, the Bigbie-like best friend and his invasive weed business and laziness, the very touching mother and father-in-law, all of the team following Shaun and the mirror-team following his ex-girlfriend,the girlfriends' friends looking like a grown-up and boring Harry Potter and a living Barbie doll...)as they all fit perfectly written characters, the filming (watch for the double and mirrored sequence shot in the beginning or the plans to get the girlfriend back!), the twisted yet classic scenario illuminated with instant-cult-scenes (you don't know yet but a vinyl of Sade may actually save your life!)... All of these make this movie an absolute must-see!go and get it,buy it, rent it or steal it, buy popcorn, sit well and enjoy alone,with your friends,girl/boy-friend or dog or grandma or anyone you want to have with you when you have a real good time!Shaun rocks!!!