Shaun Of The Dead (2004) UK
Having just royally dunned an English zombie movie and saying how leery I am of comedy/horror, I'm balancing the scales a little by presenting Shaun Of The Dead.
Yes, even this movie is a bit uneven, but Simon Pegg is downright brilliant as Shaun (there are no last names for the characters in this movie), a 29 year old appliance salesman whose life is going nowhere. He is totally oblivious to the fact that his life is ticking away and he's really not doing anything about it. Shaun embodies the average everyday person, that type of human that lives their life but doesn't really LIVE. He does nothing but go to his boring job, come home and go to the Winchester, his favorite pub. That's it. He has absolutely nothing going for him and his girlfriend Liz has had enough.Dumped and depressed, he and his friend Ed (a crude but funny Nick Frost) do the logical thing: go back to the Winchester and get totally pissed, to use the English term (I also love that they call pork rinds 'hog lumps' - that just seems more honest).
This is brilliant in its social commentary, as George Romero infused into his classic Night Of The Living Dead. From the beginning, people are getting sick, falling down in the streets, crashing cars, running in terror, even eating pigeons in the park and Shaun is all but oblivious. While trying to sell a TV he changes channels which show different news reports of the disaster happening around him but he totally ignores it. You also will see (if you pay attention) that every scene pays homage to one zombie film or another.
A great scene is when he visits his neighborhood convenience store as he does every morning - except this morning no one is in the store. He grabs a soda from the cooler, not noticing the bloody hand prints on the glass, slips on what we assume is a pool of blood on the floor, notices there are no current newspapers and no shopkeeper, but just leaves his money on the counter and carries on. One can imagine that if a disaster like this one happened here that most people probably would react the same way - totally ignorant.
When Shaun and Ed finally realize there's trouble in their little burg, the action picks up. Shaun decides to gather his loved ones and go to - where else - the Winchester. There's a great in-joke when Shaun calls his 'mum' whose name happens to be Barbara and when he tries to persuade her to let him come pick her up Ed yells into the phone 'We're coming to get you Barbara!' (I'm not going to explain that, you should know where that's from).
When Shaun and Ed finally realize there's trouble in their little burg, the action picks up. Shaun decides to gather his loved ones and go to - where else - the Winchester. There's a great in-joke when Shaun calls his 'mum' whose name happens to be Barbara and when he tries to persuade her to let him come pick her up Ed yells into the phone 'We're coming to get you Barbara!' (I'm not going to explain that, you should know where that's from).
The ending is a satisfying although abrupt one and there are a couple of holes in the plot (which Simon Pegg hilariously explains in the DVD commentary) but this is definitely a movie you should not miss. I don't see how you can if you get the Comedy Central channel - they show it at least twice a month.
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