A good movie, but not as good as people make it out to be

Rating: 6/10 (7 February 2015)

Shaun of the Dead is peculiar film because everyone seems to love it and say it is hilarious, yet there is very little in the film to actually laugh at.
The movie follows the premise of a man who is 100% clueless that the zombie apocalypse is happening around him and it isn't until too late that he realizes and must band together with his friends to find a safe place to hideout.
This sounds like a funny concept, and it is a funny concept, but it never really does anything funny with it... or interesting for that matter. What makes Shaun of the Dead interesting is that it could almost be a legit zombie film, if only it had more zombie action. This is what makes the movie oddly obnoxious is that: It is never really funny and it is never really a zombie film... it is lukewarm. Mixing genres is always a great thing as long as you can get both genres in. This movie is neither a good comedy or a good zombie movie so it becomes disappointing to watch.
The movie definitely starts out with some good laughs and the first 20 minutes of the movie are genuinely interesting. The build to the zombie apocalypse is great, but the actually pay-off isn't all that good.
I think one of the biggest issues is that the movie plays and feels like a British TV show (it is a British movie, after all) but it is shot a filmed more like a TV special than it is an actual film. That might be a nitpick, but towards the end of the film its campiness and dialogue starts to become really forced. A lot of the jokes towards the end fall flat and the entire movie tries to get a lot of intense "character interaction" in one room, but none of it works. It just feels like a TV show script where people are yelling at each other for the sake of pointless drama.
Overall, not a horrible film, but not a really great one. The movie can never fully pick a genre and ends up taking neither genre. I really wanted to find this film funny, but only a few jokes could make me chuckle.