Town Herald Reviews
The story: We can blame George Romero. After all, it
was him who started the whole zombie mania. Well, not that several other
directors, like Dario Argento, didn't help. But when you think of zombies, you
think of “Dawn of the Dead”. Of course, as you can see, there's a little
difference in the movie we are talking about. For some reason, the name is
“Shaun of the Dead”.
And that happens because Shaun is a looser. Yeah, his life is going nowhere,
he's always in the same place, living with two roommates, the overserious Pete
and the lazy Ed. Well, to be honest, his real friend is Ed. That also happens
to be the bad influence that is keeping him low. Of course, his job isn't a
big thing and the fact that his ten years younger workmates find really funny
to make fun of him doesn't help. And to make things worse, his girlfriend has
decided that she has had enough of all this perpetual estate of repetition and
has dumped him. You could say it's not a good day. But, after a lot of beers
with Ed, he has a life changing moment and decides that he's going to make
everything better, that he will fight to accomplish all his dreams, that he
will recover his (ex) girlfriend Liz, that he will make his mother happy (even
if that means having to see his creepy stepfather) and that nothing will be
able to stop him!!! Of course, the fact that a little zombie plague starts
could be a problem.
From that moment, the movie goes through a lot of the topics common in zombie
movies, with the small group fighting for survival, finding refuge in a closed
place (not a shopping this time, tough, but a bar) and losing members (both
full persons and parts of them) to the flesh eating walking corpses.
What makes this movie a little different is that is a comedy. Or not. Because
it is funny as hell, but at the same time has enough scary moments and tension
to keep everyone happy. It doesn't imitate and parody classical zombie movies,
but creates a new addition to them, without stopping the absurd humor.
The Good Points: The humor that
fills all the situations. The way the character react, the conversations they
have even in the middle of a full out zombie attack, the way they relate to
each other... There's only one way to fully explain it: the script is really
good. It's well written and shows that the people working on it are real fans
of the genre. It's not only funny, but pretty smart in the way it manages to
give us horrified snickers all the time. A lot of observation was put into
keeping details coherent with the classical zombie movies. A great work. And
the humor, absurd, silly, dark, in every shape and color, is great.
The Bad Points: The end may seem
a little hurried, but makes perfect sense with the rest of the movie and the
conventions of the genre. There's nothing particularly wrong to remark.
Greatest Moment: Several. The
fight with the zombies following the rhythm of Queen's “Don't Stop Me Now”
deserves a place in the gallery of the classic comedy moments of horror humor
story. So does the moment when the group of survivors we are following bumps
into another group... formed by exact duplicates of them. The leader is a
female, so she's bringing her boyfriend, her mother, her friends... just like
Shaun is doing! And they wear the same kind of clothes, looks similar and talk
the same way. Really funny. Like those, there are a hundred in the movie. The
girl hitting zombies with her dead boyfriend's leg, the zombie imitation
classes... Too many to name them all.
Stupidest Moment: Being stupid is
an integral part of the movie, so there's nothing to say here.
All in All: Zombie ate my
neighbours! And it was hilarious!