Top quality zombie gore-fest fun!

Rating: 10/10 (10 April 2004)

This film is bloody brilliant!!! A great British film and a perfect homage to Romero's work as well.
The 'Spaced' gang got everything dead-on right (excuse the pun). Let's start with the zombie film checklist shall we -
1) Is it gory? Oh yes! Fantastically so. The effects and make-up work is doubly phenomenal.
2) Is it scary? Yes it is. It's definitely comedy-horror in both meanings of the term. The tension builds more towards the end of the film. By this point you've invested in the main characters enough that there's a heavy amount of dread that we may lose any of them. And there are a number of well-earned 'jumps' along the way.
3) Does it have social commentary? Yep. The original 'Dawn' is still tops at this I feel, but 'Shaun' gets some nice satirical swipes in. These aimed at the 'zombification' of our society as a whole, and if the dead did start walking around a city like London you might not notice it immediately.
I think those are the key elements that a good zombie flick needs. And this film passes all of them with style. But then of course it also has the added bonus of being a total scream (in the ha-ha sense). It's really insanely funny. I haven't laughed at the piccies as much in a long long time. And it's not like you just remember a few main funny bits, which happens with some comedies. 'Shaun' is continuously funny all the way through. Be it with some ace visual gag, or the more smarter stuff. I'm sure I missed some of it's subtle material but I'll try to spot it when I go see it again next week.
I'm also going to try to spot more joke references to zombie films of the past, and other non-zombie ones, that are scattered throughout. Horror film aficionados are going to love playing this game. There are references all over the shop. Some of them are shops in fact.
The cast is cool bananas. Take various actors out of all the best recent Brit comedy shows, add in Bill Nighy, and this is what you end up with. It's unbeatable imho. Simon Pegg takes the lead exceptionally well, and yet still has the film stolen from him by Nick Frost as Shaun's best friend Ed. The character of Ed is such a loser, but the way Nick Frost plays him you just HAVE to love the bloke. Kate Ashfield, Dylan Moran and Lucy Davis all do great jobs too.
What else can I write about? The direction? Fantastic! The music? Fantastic! The ending? Oh lordy the ending is solid gold!
An absolute must-see.