Originally posted 9/27/04
Shaun of the Dead
Director: Edgar Wright
Writers: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright
Producer: Nira Park
Stars: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy
The Scream movies were labeled “post-modern” because the characters in them had seen horror movies and used them as a template for survival. Shaun of the Dead is a different kind of post-modern, because its success depends heavily on the audience having seen horror movies, particularly zombie movies. The characters have not seen zombie movies, and know nothing about survival except how much their preferred post-hangover victuals cost at the corner market.
This almost appallingly-amusing movie’s central joke is that there’s no thing too weird, say, for example, an apocalypse of the walking dead, that we as people couldn’t eventually filter into a background irritant. The inertia of the average low-watt slacker, we see, will always bring him back to his couch, television and beer.
Shaun (Simon Pegg), a 29-year old appliance salesman who’s yet to advance beyond the pay grade of his 17-year old co-workers, knows that his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) wants to see him grow up some. And we can tell he’s genuinely sweet on her – notice how he’s paid enough attention to remember the definition of the word “exacerbate” at an important moment, and how he can’t bring himself to follow through with a lie to her no matter how damning the truth.
But somehow, he always comes up short at a key moment, and despite his repeated insistence that they’re going to do something romantic as a couple, they invariably find themselves back in the Winchester Pub for the evening, sucking down beer and peanuts with Shaun’s best friend Ed (Nick Frost). Ed is a part time pot-dealer and genial overweight hanger-on – he’s decided it’s his function in life to make Shaun laugh, and lacks the self-awareness to know he’s a walking rut for Shaun to keep falling in. Liz can barely tolerate his existence and despises the Winchester.
The behavior between these three is so detailed, so full of frustrated history and habit, but with such unquestionable underlying affection, that the complications their relationship is about to undergo tempts me to label this British import a relationship comedy.
Except that it happens to have zombies in it.
Those people who know the zombie formula will be laughing at odd times, and not just because of the movie’s throwaway references to its forebearers (“We’re coming to get you, Barbara!” shouts one character reassuringly). They’ll also laugh because, while our heroes are slow to catch on – they never linger on enough of a news broadcast to hear important information, and most of the folks in their neighborhood don’t seem all that engaged on the best of days anyway – we know exactly what’s happening.
Some force has turned the recently deceased into zombies, and they’re going to do what zombies do, which is to lurch around, moan, eat people, and make more zombies. But these characters are held back by their hangovers, the emotional bruising from their arguments with each other, and the mental dulling brought upon by their directionless lives – so after a day or two it’s finally up to Ed to point out “There’s a girl in the back yard!”
And from there Shaun must grow a spine, pick up a cricket bat, and lead his loved ones to safety through the growing zombie horde. Of course, with hilarious but unassailable logic, he and Ed conclude that the best place to hole up with their loved ones is at the Winchester, which is no small bone of contention with Liz and her best friends (Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran)
The filmmakers tread a very fine line, in that most of the time they want us to react with sincere emotion to the characters they’ve taken the trouble to detail with such care. And every so often they flub – like a scene where a character pauses in a stressful moment to answer his cell and becomes incongruously nonchalant; it’s not the knee-slapper it’s meant to be. And it takes us just that little bit out of the movie.
It’s almost as if they realized the very high bar they set for themselves, and couldn’t resist including a few cheap throwaways just in case they didn’t clear it. Which is an overall let-down, when you see how gleefully they manage to pivot from a dying character’s loving confession to a bit of demented slapstick involving a car with too many people (and one suddenly non-person) in it, you realize they had the talent not to have to resort to some of these gags.
There are so many sights and moments in Shaun that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else. The humor is at its best when the filmmakers hold faith with their material and find just the right gag, or song (brilliant use of two cuts by Queen), or squelchy sound effect to play on the knowledge we have that the characters don’t. And the scares are best when we’re reminded, at just the right and cruel times, how lethal a zombie plague can be.
While 28 Days Later and this year’s Dawn of the Dead re-make gave us sprinting zombies, these are old-school, might as well dub them “Romero-style” slow zombies, and director/co-writer Edgar Wright and his co-writer/star Simon Pegg clearly know what’s both funny and scary about them. What’s funny is that, taken one at a time, or viewed from a distance, they’re pathetic, aimless. You can outrun, outmaneuver, even knock a few aside without much trouble, as long as you’re paying attention. It’s when their numbers keep growing, and you get tired, that you start to get scared.
So alchemy in this case has produced not pure gold, but certainly something unique and valuable. Shaun is an honest and earnest soul and a swell guy to hang out with. And we see, when the crisis hits, he manages not like a movie hero, but probably about as well as any of us would under the circumstances. Which is exactly what makes it so funny.