Film of The Year!! Instant Cult Classic!

Rating: 9/10 (22 April 2004)

This film is a geek boy's wet dream! It is a pleasant and refreshing surprise that a film about zombies, and also a British film is so fresh and vibrant and so entertaining. Spaced creative duo Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright are the writers here and Wright is the director. Their obviously geekish love of film is evident in the superbly entertaining Spaced and in this film as well.
Simon Pegg leads a superb cast of comic talent and plays the part of loser Shaun to perfection. The film is an obvious homage to Dawn Of The Dead and follows almost the same pattern. One morning the world is suddenly crawling with the undead, and to ingenious comical effect the intellectually challenged Shaun and his best mate, equal in the stupid loser stakes, Ed, don't realise this for ages. The performances of both Pegg and Nick Frost as Ed are superb. The dialogue in the film is fantastic. There are constant laughs throughout this and some real big belly laughs too. Kate Ashfield is also good as Shaun's long suffering girlfriend. There is also great suport from Lucy Davis and a superb Jessica Stevenson. I'm a little disappointed Stevenson, a lead in Spaced is relegated to a cameo here.
The film is superb as a comedy but what marks this down as instant cult classic is the fact that the dramatic sides and the horror elements also work great. There are some genuine jumps and scares and Wright manages to create real tension. I have to safely say as well the soundtrack is one of the best ever. This is overall a great film for buffs and general movie goers alike. This is perhaps the film of the year so far, alongside School Of Rock. ****