"You've got red on you"

Rating: 9/10 (31 July 2006)

This is the best romantic comedy zombie film ("rom com zom") you'll ever see, and possibly the ONLY you will see, so watch and enjoy Shaun of the Dead now before it becomes a cult classic. And trust me, it will.
Stuck with a dead-end job, having no motivation in life and living with a sluggish flatmate who only plays video games or drags him to the pub, Shaun (Simon Pegg) is your typical underachiever. In fact, his lazy attitude and inability to break this pattern drives his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) to break up with him, leaving him in an ever deeper rut than before. Shaun is so depressed with his situation that he does not even notice the ongoing zombie invasion that turns recently-diseased people into the living flesh-eating dead. It is not until the zombies literally show up at his doorstop and try to eat him and his flatmate alive that they pick up on that something is wrong. Priceless.
Shaun of the Dead is the most random and simultaneously brilliant parody I have ever seen. Sure, there have been many well-crafted spoofs over the years (Young Frankenstein, Airplane! Army of Darkness, etc.) but where most films concentrate on parodying one genre, this film takes care of spoofing ALL genres--horror, comedy, romance and it does to in a genius way. For example, when Shaun and the rest seek refuge from the zombies at the local pub, barricading themselves in, it turns into a pastiche of From Dusk Till Dawn down to the very weapons they use, positions they stand in and the zombie attacks they suffer. Then you have the prototype of an anti-hero, Shaun, who turns into a Stallone-like tough guy during a short period of time in the pub, wearing a sweaty bandanna across his forehead and holding a rifle in his hand, generally looking like the most badass character in action films.
Just the way the dialogue cuts to an action deserves a great deal of credit as it is perfectly handled. Another thing, I often find myself getting annoyed at the reactions of the characters in horror films when they are faced with danger - they either don't look scared enough or they screw up their reaction in other ways - but in Shaun of the Dead, this is perfection. I don't expect I need to comment on the blatant allegory for the zombie generation of our time and the way people in big cities in London are not entirely different from zombies... a part of the reason why Shaun and his friends take time to realise something is wrong.
9/10