Cinema Sweet

With their new movie, Paul, next on my list of reasons to go to the cinema, it seemed appropriate to review the very best of the hilarious duo that is Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. And it does not get much better than...

Shaun of the Dead
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy
Director: Edgar Wright
Released: April 9, 2004

This is the movie which redefined a genre. Shaun of the Dead ushered in a new era of zombie comedies (zom coms) like 2006's Fido, and 2009's Zombieland. But I maintain that it is one of the best - and that extends further than this genre alone.

Self-dubbed as a romantic comedy with zombies (yes, a RomZomCom), the film sees Shaun (Simon Pegg) try to get his life together, win back his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), and deal with his mother and stepfather (Bill Nighy). Matters are complicated significantly by a zombie apocalypse.

Shaun lives with disgruntled roommate Pete and the crude, lazy Ed (Nick Frost). As a zombie apocalypse breaks out, Shaun is amusingly unaware for some time that the dead are now walking the earth, too wrapped up in his problems (and a hangover) to notice the many signs - such as bloody hand prints on the freezer door of the local corner shop, a woman chewing on a man's throat outside the local pub, and indeed the moaning, lumbering zombies on the streets. When he eventually realises what's going on after watching the news, there is already a zombie in the house, two in garden, and his roommate Pete was infected the night before. After neutralising the current zombie problem, Shaun and Ed decide the best course of action would be to barricade themselves in the pub, picking up Liz and Shaun's mum on the way, and killing the stepfather Phillip whom he hates and who has also been infected. But this is not as easy as it sounds, what with the growing population of the undead wandering the streets with a hunger for entrails, as well as a lot of bickering and the fact that they are forced to take Liz's roommates (who Shaun dislikes) and the infected Phillip along with them.

I wouldn't have thought it was possible to make a film that is funny, gory, and romantic at the same time, but Shaun of the Dead happily proved me wrong. It is a hilarious film - even the clever title makes me titter. The laid-back attitude of Ed, who sits eating a cornetto after bashing in the brains of a zombie; Shaun and Ed flipping through their record collection deciding which are too valuable to throw whilst bloodied hungry zombies approach; and even the ridiculously gory disembowelment and beheading of Liz's roommate David (Dylan Moran) are just a few of the little gems which make this film so side-splittingly funny. But somehow, miraculously, it manages to hold its own as a zombie film as well, in spite of the comedic and romantic elements which pepper the plot line. I'll admit that there are moments in the film which make me jump, and when you strip away the quick, clever comedy, it does contain some genuine chills. A body bag is seen hanging out of an ambulance with someone thrashing inside it. Shaun is forced to shoot his mother in the head after she dies and becomes one of the undead. Shaun of the Dead manages simultaneously to be a hilarious, romantic tragedy - something which no other film I can think of successfully pulls off.

Fast, funny and gloriously gory, Shaun of the Dead will have you itching to see more of the duo that is Simon Pegg and Nick Frost - and might leave you lying awake that night pondering the threat of a zombie apocalypse. I did. Nonetheless, Shaun of the Dead still makes it onto my list of all-time favourite movies, one I'll keep watching untill the apocalypse I don't doubt.

Cinema Sweet Rating - 10/10