SF Signal: MOVIE REVIEW: Shaun of the Dead

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MOVIE REVIEW: Shaun of the Dead

REVIEW SUMMARY: Successful combination of humor and horror.
MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The tagline of the movie says it all: "A romantic comedy. With zombies."

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Humorous and gory at the same time.
CONS: Occasionally predictable.
BOTTOM LINE: A fun film. With zombies!

Shaun is an English bloke whose life is going nowhere - a dead-end job, starined relationships with his mother and stepfather ("He's not my dad!"), a loser roommate and a bored girlfriend. But Shaun gets a chance to turn things around and be a hero when the people in his hometown are turned into zombies. Yeah, that's right - zombies.

This movie is played for laughs and mostly succeeds. There are a few awkward moments where the storyline veers from funny to absurd, but they are fortunately few and far between. The parts I liked best were in the beginning when Shaun and his hilarious roommate Ed (my favorite character) don't even realize that the town is becoming more and more populated with zombies. All the clues happen beyond his eyesight or in the background (and accompanied by deliciously eerie music, of course). The slow, stunted classic zombie gait used in the film was put to excellent use by filling it in with humor. The part when they were going through Shaun's vinyl records and deciding which ones to hurl at the zombies based on the talent of the artist, all this while being pursued by two nearby zombies , was a hoot.

Some of the plot points were predictable - you saw who was going to turn miles before it happened - but that was only a minor detraction. Usually, you forgot about it when served with a healthy dose of gore. Two of the scenes (at least) were riffs on other zombie movies; I suspect there were more.

A breezed through the DVD extras (it was late) but wanted to mention that there was a generous helping of them. All in all, a fun film for the whole family (minus the kids).

I recently saw this DVD with a strong sense of skepticism for a romantic comedy based with zombies. Let me prefacemy review, I watch a lot of romantic comedy movies. Yes there are some are stupid and unrealistic RC movies but this one ices the cake. First, let me say I barely made it thru it.

The plot was slow. Shaun's roommate was annoying. I really tried to find the romance or even the comedy but it did nothing for me.

Sorry!

Posted by Jules on Sunday February 06, 2005 at 6:32 PM

Obviously Julie isn' British. Or a zombie fan. Or even some combination of the two.

But I bet she'd watch zombies in an undead version of Porky's...

Posted by JP on Sunday February 06, 2005 at 7:20 PM

Hey now I watched this movie... I do like British movies. I don't mind some zombie movies but the issue is it was trying to pass off as a romantic comedy.

Posted by Jules on Monday February 07, 2005 at 9:12 AM

I rather thought the implication on the movie posters that this was a romantic comedy was either A) a complete joke in itself, or B) a fairly tongue-in-cheek joke. Yeah, I think anyone actually expecting a romantic comedy will be gravely disappointed. That said, this movie does have a surprising amount of heart. And I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Posted by Mervius on Monday February 07, 2005 at 11:07 AM

'gravely dissapointed' - Mervius, you slay me!

What did the mommy zombie say to the baby zombie?
You have your father's eyes.

How do you know a zombie is tired?
He's dead on his feet.

Posted by Scott on Monday February 07, 2005 at 1:44 PM

its a joke..pleasee...the movie is great. if you want a romantic movie try nothin hill or some movie like that

Posted by Erick Cartman on Saturday May 03, 2008 at 6:21 PM