PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 9/24/04)


These early post-millennial years have unleashed a multiplex apocalypse of gut-munchers indebted to Night of the Living Dead’s George A. Romero, from 28 Days Later and House of the Dead to a double dose of Resident Evil and this year’s Dawn of the Dead remake—but still, we ain’t done yet (both 28 Weeks Later and a remake of Bob Clark’s Deathdream have been announced).  As an avid fan of the sub-genre, I’m not complaining, because what’s discouraging about Britain’s smash hit Shaun of the Dead being so endlessly clever and bloody hilarious (make that bloody and hilarious) is that it sets a frighteningly high bar for any zombie flicks that lie in its wake.  

Inspired by an episode of their zany BBC sitcom Spaced, director Edgar Wright and cowriter Simon Pegg proclaim Shaun of the Dead to be a "rom-zom-com" (romantic zombie comedy), but while it parodies the Romero mythos and cinematic descendants, it never settles for being just a zombie movie spoof. Twentysomething North London slacker Shaun (Pegg), a floundering electronics-store employee and charismatic pub fixture, is stuck in a rut after screwing up an anniversary surprise, but can’t figure out how to win back his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). The wackiness then escalates when—as a social commentary toward the low-key aloofness of Brits—Shaun and his couch potato roommate Ed (a scene-stealing Nick Frost, also of Spaced) become the last to realize, in the midst of said girl problems, that a full-scale zombie invasion has taken place outside. Once the boys start fighting the undead in their backyard by flinging their vinyl collection (riotously choosing which albums are worth destroying and lamenting over that ruined first-printing of "Blue Monday"), the film slowly cross-fades into an all-out survival terror with the requisite pathos and fear factor . . . plus a steady stream of Pythonesque laughs and the hopes that Shaun and Liz will get back together.

Mainstream audiences might not be ready for slasher-movie reveals played for laughs, followed directly by tragic sequences in which infected friends and family members must be "put down." But surprisingly, this hybrid of humor and horror flows seamlessly, recalling almost nothing since the cult success of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy.  Whatever you want to label this quick-paced crowd-pleaser, it is definitely one of the year’s must-sees.

—Aaron Hillis