Convincing British effort, which is so much more than mere pastiche as it integrates class comedy and character study-alike rather well.

Rating: 7/10 (18 December 2010)

Filmmakers and writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, in tandem, prove they're more than adept at producing a high on energy levels; high on laughs comedy material in their 2004 film Shaun of the Dead. Their film is a big on fun, big on smarts comedy-romance piece about a clash of classes and a man going through somewhat of a midlife crisis just as the end of the world, in the form of the dead coming back to life so as to feed on the living, arrives into the world. The film is a merciless series of rapid punchlines and in-jokes, entertaining and effective in equal measure without ever feigning to be anything more; a piece made by two people whom have here shown they have the comic timing and the subtly required to take on the kind of material they do. Take, for instance, the scene in which certain characters are trapped inside a locked car because the rear door child-locks are on. It was established five minutes ago that they were on, but such a gag works thanks largely to Wright and Pegg's ability to introduce something; place it on the back-burner and then execute the joke when required to around all the other stuff in the form of character, more immediate gags that are going on and great peril which is unfolding.
One casts one's mind back to David Zucker's 2003 film My Boss's Daughter; a comedy free freak show whose comic timing awkwardly consisted of someone, in Ashthon Kutcher, inept and cack-handed placed in the delicate situation of looking after a pristine home and charged with looking after the pride and joy of its owner in the form of a pet owl. The sounds of the gears of an automobile being incorrectly changed as it approaches a speed began to sound pretty early on, sure enough, everything goes down the pan in an as limp manner as possible in what was an excruciating feature. The team on Shaun of the Dead set a joke up; mix it in with a couple of others; have you momentarily misplace it before effortlessly executing the punch-line minutes later amidst everything else that's happening. In comparison, it is a bravado display of both comic timing on top of entertaining material. Another example might be the anger levels reached by one character, whose berating at others stems from the fact the front door is persistently being left open overnight; the gag of which is set up, placed on a back-burner and then pulled off with aplomb when the time comes.
It is Simon Pegg playing the titular Shaun, a man in his late twenties working in a high-street electronics store whilst supervising the more younger employees. He lives with part-time drug dealer but the generally unemployed Ed (Frost) and whom we're led to believe is a high-flying businessman in Pete (Serafinowicz), both of whom Shaun have known for many years. Shaun's relationship with Liz (Ashfield) is on the rocks, they sit in a public house named The Winchester with some of her friends and discuss where they stand. The pair of them clash in profile, Ed's more centralised figure as he works a slot machine and spouts one-liners distracting us from what Liz has to say. She wants more out of life and wants a better relationship with Shaun in which they do more together rather than just go to the pub. The parallel between their disfigured connection to that of David (Moran) and Dianne's (Davis), Liz's friends, relationship is clear in that their's is sturdier and have interests of a 'higher' nature such as the going to theatres. This is precisely where Liz wishes to be, in terms of status, with Shaun. The earlier clash in profile has David and Dianne sit on Liz's side, effectively a clashing of classes, as Shaun's accomplice Ed comes over and alienates everybody with his demeanour.
Shaun and Ed appear so tuned out of their lives that they appear to have missed the apocalypse. Two sequences that mirror one another show Shaun, in one long tracking shot, walking from his home; down the street and into a local shop before coming back again. The items of a kid playing football; a local washing his car and those in and around a local corner shop reoccur in both sequences, the first time Shaun ventures there everything appearing rosy and functioning in a supposedly Utopian world of the working class and of terrace housing. Later on, a similar sequence post-epidemic is provided with the same route taken with similar elements along the way thus suggesting a link between the two existences or 'worlds'. Shaun's inability to tell the respective worlds apart is quite biting, while the zombie-like people plodding to work on board a bus very early on suggests alienation and disenchantment with their functioning lives; an overlying sense of the Western world in the form of seemingly happy kids playing football in the street amidst terrace housing and the working class and their cars already well on its way to ruin.
The film scores points for moulding in the epidemic of the coming of the zombies with the drama going on between partners and housemates as well as it does. This isn't a film as interested in delivering horror genre frills involving zombies as much as it is interested, for the most part, in dealing with character and story. The film is effectively Shaun's shot at proving his worth to Liz, the winning of her back by way of proving his worth to her and ticking off all the more minor items which plagued the development of their relationship before, specifically the inability to fabricate a meeting with Shaun's mother and the threat of competition from David whom it is established is attracted to Liz. The film is a really enjoyable, expertly pitched piece full of heart and genuinely funny – the likes of which ought to be embraced.