SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004) Needs less 80's Queen, more 70's Queen Every decade seems to good for one good zombie comedy. The 80's had Return Of The Living Dead; the 90's had Dead Alive. Shaun Of The Dead is here to let you know that you've got at least five years to wait for the next one. Shaun (Simon Pegg) is in a rut, and the only person who doesn't know it is his roommate Ed (Nick Frost) who's in a deeper rut than Shaun is. Ed is apparently supposed to be the loveable lump, though it's apparent from early on he's a total leech with no sense of responsibility to the only people who prevent him from being homeless and I was hoping he'd be the first guy to get eaten by zombies. Shaun eventually has his epiphany about him (he has a few of these) but it seems short-lived. Shaun works in a dead-end job with a bunch of teenagers who don't respect him in the least and defer to his nominal authority only because he's been working there for far longer than any of them plan to. The night his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) leaves him, he gets drunk and leaves himself a three part message: go to Mom's, get your girlfriend back, and get your life in order. Same night: the world (or at least London) gets overrun with zombies. A world overrun with zombies offers many opportunities for a 29-year-old slacker to show his quality, particularly in the eyes of a newly ex- girlfriend, especially when the friends of hers who don't like him are sure to become zombie chow. The success of Shaun Of The Dead centers on its hero, who's an effortlessly likeable everyman throughout but undergoes a convincing transformation from a little pitiable to someone you might almost believe could get that girl back. It helps that the band of survivors he leads to his unlikely fortress are mostly even more timid than he is, including one grown man who's obviously supposed to look like Harry Potter. In its most showily unsuccessful sequence, Shaun Of The Dead distinguishes (?) itself by being the first zombie movie I can think of to suggest that zombies can't tell the difference between other zombies, and living humans who are merely acting like zombies. I don't buy that one. I know, I'm the guy who always defends running zombies against the people who say "zombies can't run!" as if they actually existed in the real world and obeyed principles dictated by the nature of their bodies and natures - of course, zombies can believe or disbelieve whatever the writers want them to. But this scene seriously hampers the credibility of the zombie menace; there hardly seems to be a reason to stay inside anymore if you can move about town unmolested for as long as you're willing to stay in character. Otherwise, the zombies and life-and-death stakes are mostly taken pretty seriously; the deaths we do see are almost at the gruesome level of that asshole who got torn to pieces at the end of Day Of the Dead. There's a sad overtone to the (inevitable) scene where one member of the party gets bitten but cheerfully insists that he'll be fine, and when Shaun distracts a horde of zombies with, well, himself, it's believable as a brave but desperate measure, instead of a cheap heroic. This is not a hard-core horror movie by any stretch, but it takes enough of itself seriously to underline the comedy with a shade of desperation (on the part of the characters, not the filmmakers), which gives it a little color and makes a few of the funny scenes funnier. Directed by Edgar Wright (no relation), who I guess is getting a cameo in Romero's upcoming return to the genre. I still haven't decided if I have high expectations for that one yet, but I know I'll be one of the first in line to see it. BACK TO THE S's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE