Excellence in originality

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2005)

I'm still reeling after wasting 9.50 to see that god-awful remake of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," which soiled not only the good name of the original movie-which is, for my money, the most frightening American horror film ever made-but the reputation of Mr. Ed Gein. That affront to Mr. Gein's good name was the straw that broke the camel's back: After sitting through the horrible likes of "House of a 1000 Corpses," "House on Haunted Hill," "House of the Dead," and "House IV," I had finally accepted the fact that horror peaked in the 1970s and that any scary movie made for a large American audience these days was going to be nothing but crap.
And that's what the trailers for "Shaun of the Dead" made it look like: a retarded, platitude-filled mess of awful humor. What's worse, every review I came across (granted, I didn't read them too carefully) made sure to mention in the first sentence or two that this was a "parody" of zombie films. Goody, I thought, the British version of "Scary Movie 3." There was no way in hell that I was going to watch it.
But then I was lucky enough to catch a few episodes of the British comedy "Spaced" on Trio one evening, and I loved it. During commercial breaks the announcer was sure to mention that the people who made "Spaced" had also made Shaun of the Dead, and then they'd show the trailer for the film. This confused me. How could the makers of such an original, funny program be responsible for what looked like a horrible film? Could it--could it be that TV was lying to me? Or was the distributor of this film somehow trying to dumb down its image to make it more palatable to the simple tastes of American middle-schoolers, that all-important demographic that 99.9% of all Hollywood films made in the last five years have been geared towards? It was all too confusing; I had to find solace in drink. When I woke up there was a copy of Shaun of the Dead on DVD lying next to me. I popped it in and was blown away.
The humor is original. I cannot stress that enough, as I cannot remember the last time I saw anything bordering on original humor in a horror film. The plot may be middle of the road but it's saved by its refusal to stick to the usual zombie film contrivances in which five of ten character archetypes (tough guy, sissy guy, sassy black woman, et cetera) are pitted against zombies in one of three different situations.
Even if the plot for Shaun of the Dead were as clichéd and moronic as "House of Wax," the characters would have made it an enjoyable film. They don't stick to pre-determined roles (aside from Dylan Moran's David), and are actually well-rounded and *gasp* charming. The gory special effects are wondrous, the pacing is great, and the Spaced-like cinematography transfers perfectly to the big screen.
My sole complaint is with the character David, played by "Black Book's" Dylan Moran. Moran's Bernard Black, a surly alcoholic who owns a bookstore, is one of the funniest characters I've seen imported to America in years. Moran's talent is wasted as the 2-dimensional foil to Simon Pegg's incredibly likable Shaun; he does a tired job of whining his way through his lines and doesn't garner a single laugh.