If a movie is
made by filmmakers who hardcore genre fans, odds are those filmmakers are going
to make sure fans like them are pleased. Thus the success of Shaun of the Dead (2004) is explained.
Horror comedies can be a hard sell, and a British horror comedy even more so,
but since co-writers Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are both fans of George A.
Romero’s Dead trilogy, they were
going to honour the genre while having loads of fun. Fortunately for the audience,
the result was a new zombie classic that was so good it earned Pegg and his
frequent co-star Nick Frost cameos on Romero’s Land of the Dead.
Before the movie
came out Wright the director and co-stars Pegg and Frost had already made a
name for themselves in the U.K with the sitcom Spaced, but it was Shaun of
the Dead that put their names on the map. It was also the beginning of
their Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, named after a running joke about the
British ice cream product and its supposed effect as a hangover cure. Like many
international viewers, Shaun was my
introduction to the trilogy. I had a ball watching the first instalment on DVD while
in Quebec City with my brother, which is appropriate since you could argue this
is a guy film. I had just finished high school, so I was probably the core target
audience for a movie about video-game loving dudes who must suddenly get off
their butts to fight zombies.
A key reason for the
film’s success is that unlike most zombie movies the main characters are not
action heroes, but ordinary Joes with ordinary problems. The titular Shaun
(Pegg) is a man with an uninteresting job at an electronics store whose main
interest in life is sitting on his couch to play video games with his best
friend Ed (Nick Frost) who has no job at all. His girlfriend Liz (Kate
Ashfield) is getting sick of Shaun’s lifestyle and of their social life, which
mostly consists of hanging out with Ed at The Winchester, their favourite pub.
When Liz decides to dump him, it would seem Shaun must do what slackers his age
have to do and grow up a little.
Shaun’s wake up
call actually comes from the last thing he would have expected: a zombie
apocalypse. In one of the movie’s funniest sequences, he gets up in the morning,
walks to a grocery store to buy a cornetto,
and walks back home completely oblivious to the fact the dead are now walking
the streets. It takes a TV news report for him and Ed to realize zombies are
slowly invading their backyard and that if they want to survive the day the
must do the impossible and get off the couch.
As this is a
love-letter to classic zombie movies, these characters are fully aware of the
rules of dealing with the undead, although are reluctant to call them “the Z
word.” They try to decapitate them with old vinyl records they don’t listen to
anymore, and when that fails Shaun arms himself with a cricket bat, reminding
the audience this is England after all. Whereas in America they would arm
themselves with automatic weapons and head to the mall, Shaun and Ed decide to
go get Liz, Shaun’s mom (Penelope Winton), his stepfather (Bill Nighy), and
hole up at The Winchester. Their eventual arrival at the pub leads to another
reminder of the film’s British identity, as the characters fight a zombie while
Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now is playing
on the jukebox.
Moments like these
cover the comedy aspect of Wright’s horror-comedy, but he and Pegg make sure
there is plenty for horror fans as well. Even though these characters stop and
argue about their relationships amidst the carnage, they are fully aware and
scared that their former neighbours might tear their limbs out.
It’s a difficult
balancing act, but the entire cast and crew pulls it off. This was a brilliant
opening to the Cornetto trilogy and I had just as good a time watching the
conclusion, The World’s End, last
year on the big screen in Edmonton. A lot has changed since 2004, with Pegg now
starring in the Star Trek franchise
and Frost making it out on his own, but the biggest change must be how Shaun of the Dead started out as a film
influenced by zombie classics and is now influencing other filmmakers. That’s
the power of genre fans for you.
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