Yawn of the Dead

Rating: 1/10 (22 March 2005)

** SPOILERS **
Before I start with the review I'd like to make clear that I am a huge fan of anything that has anything to do with zombie films. I see all I can get my hands on, whether they get good or bad reviews and whether I've heard anything about them or not. Shan of the Dead seemed like a cool idea for a movie, at least prior to when I saw the trailer. After seeing the trailer I thought I'd give it a chance anyway. Something not recommended to others, since that's those 99 minutes of your life that you're never going to get back.
One of the main problems with this movie is the characters. For good drama you need suitable characters to move the story forward. Shaun of the Dead lacks this vital component. In many instances it's hard to tell what the screenwriter was thinking. The following characters inherit this film: The main character Shaun. He is an ugly loser with nothing going for him. He feels sorry for himself the whole film through all the way to the ending, but it's really his own fault that he is a big loser. Shaun has a friend who lives off him and Shaun's other roommate. This guy is a lazy, fat and disgusting slob with no sense of responsibility whatsoever. I forgot to mention that he deals marijuana as his only way of income. Adorable, isn't it? Shaun's second roommate has a job (!!), a sense of responsibility and seems to know what's right or wrong. Constantly throughout the short period of time that this character still survives, he is being called names behind his back by his "friends", and he is the one who dies first.
Hold up a second here. Something's wrong. The unsympathetic main characters are morons who nobody can identify with, and the only sensible person in the trio gets killed off quickly. You can't build a movie like this. If you can't identify yourself with the protagonists, you won't care what happens to this and then the movie will not draw you in. I won't bore you with descriptions the rest of the characters, but it's basically the same drill as with the ones I've already mentioned.
Another problem with the film is that it's a bit schizophrenic in the sense that it doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. It certainly is no romantic comedy, because 1. Let's face it: How romantic are zombies, really? and 2. It's a failed attempt at comedy since very few jokes actually are funny. Maybe the last one is because it's a British sort of humor that I don't 'get'. Anyway, the up until the last 20 minutes, the movie tries to be a comedy, then however it gets 100 percent serious and turns into some sort of splatter-horror-drama. This film is not a good film, and it's one of the worst zombie films I've seen and I've seen some pretty bad ones.