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Shaun of the Dead

I must confess to being a wimp in at least one regard—zombies freak me out.???

Their movies usually have too much rough stuff going on for my tender constitution.? Corpses.? Cannibalism.? Family eating family.? I don’t care if the severed limbs and unspooled intestines are really made of rubber and sausages; they’re still gross.? Mind you, I appreciate the artistry of the original Night of the Living Dead, and I can tolerate 28 Days Later since, compared to its predecessors, it’s positively tame.? But an evening with the walking dead is still not my idea of a fun and relaxing time.

Even Shaun of the Dead, which is being billed as a zombie comedy, is pretty rough.? In fact, there’s more flesh-rending here than in the original Resident Evil.? Surprised?? I was, but I shouldn’t have been.? The British are big into edgy humor.? They don’t go halfway with their zombie spoof; it’s so violent, in the “classic” Romero style, that it almost qualifies as a proper horror movie.

But hey, I enjoyed Shaun anyway—probably because there’s more to it than over-the-top gore.? The first half hour is devoted almost entirely to character development, with only a few menacing hints of the zombies’ presence sprinkled here and there.? We’re introduced to Shaun and Ed, a couple of endearing losers who spend most of their time playing videogames and sinking deeper into the couch.? The social commentary is obvious, but amusing nonetheless; they’ve already been “zombiefied” by modern life.?

Pretty soon, the hapless Shaun is dumped by his girlfriend Liz, and he spends the rest of the movie trying to (a) rescue her from the undead and (b) win back her affections.

Are you mortified by the idea of romantic comedy shenanigans in a zombie movie?? Never fear; the love story is nothing more than a side issue.? Even at that, though, it gets a bit tedious.? Liz’s personality is never developed beyond the basics: she wants a more exciting and fulfilling life, and that means she needs to ditch her deadbeat boyfriend.? But while this dynamic is kind of a bore, the “buddy” scenes with Shaun and Ed are excellent.? They drink, they fart, they talk trash.? By the time the zombie siege begins, we like them enough to really hope they don’t get eaten alive.? And that’s an important thing in a horror movie; how can you get scared if you don’t give a fig about the potential victims?

And I did, indeed, get a bit scared.? Shaun follows the traditional zombie formula of presenting a dire situation that slowly decays into a really dire situation. At first, the heroes are fighting a handful of zombies.? Then dozens.? Then, seemingly hundreds.? Nowhere is safe.? By the end, things look so grim that I wasn’t actually sure if Shaun and company were going to make it.? I was in genuine suspense.? And that’s an impressive achievement for a film filled with tension-diffusing jokes.????

I’m wary of making Shaun sound too much like a straightforward horror piece, though.? Of course it’s mostly just funny.? But I wanted to call attention to the moments that are strangely violent or poignant, because they frustrated my expectations—in the best way.? There’s more to the movie than I anticipated.? It’s not just cool…it’s actually good and cool.? And that means it should appeal to fans of both serious and cornball horror.? ??

Since it represents such a high point for the genre, I think Shaun is a great way to end what I call the recent “Zombie Renaissance.”? Now that we’ve all had a good laugh at the disgusting creatures, do you think we can send them back to cinematic oblivion for a couple decades?? It would, at the very least, be good for my stomach.??