Shaun of the Dead

Edgar Wright, UK, 2004, 99 minutes

Shaun’s been having a tough time of it. Still working in a dead-end job as a store assistant, yesterday his girlfriend dumped him. Then Shaun wakes up on a 'funny sort of day’ with the dead returning to life as flesh-eating zombies. Determined to do something constructive, he goes to rescue his girlfriend and accompanying supporting cast with the plan of sitting in the pub and waiting until the zombies go away.

This romantic comedy with zombies is fried gold, a near-perfect spoof of so many different staples of modern culture. This is the Night of the Living Dead trilogy Brit style. Unlike in America, where people can pick up a rifle for the first time in their lives and blow the heads off zombies two carparks away, here you can pick up a gun and miss zombies two feet away. Shaun kicks more zombie-ass than Romero, and he does it with a cricket bat.

Review by Rupert Good
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2004