A Review: Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead is a comedy, end-of-the-world film directed by Edgar Wright, staring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. This film is often time overlooked as genuine comedy gold, but I’m here to say that it is just that. This is the first of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Cornetto Trilogy; the other two being: Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World’s End (2013). Shaun of the Dead is a story about Shaun, (Pegg) a 29-year-old man, who still lives with his lazy roommate (Frost) and whose life is not where he wants it to be. When his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) breaks-up with him he vows to turn it all around. Unfortunately his timing is far from the best, as he wakes up to a zombie apocalypse. That doesn’t stop him from trying to win back his ex, prove he’s useful to his family and friends, and of course have a few pints at his favorite pub, the Winchester Arms.
The film was writing by Simon Pegg, and Edgar Wright and was shot over nine weeks between May and July 2003, though the release was delayed two weeks in the UK because of the timing and the similarity of Zach Snyder’s film, Dawn of the Dead (2004) coming out in March. This could have had an effect on the monetary success of the film. Shaun of the Dead’s budget was about £4 million (≈$5 million), when it opened in the UK on April 11th 2004 it only did about £ 1.6 million (≈$2 million) on opening weekend. When it was released in the US on September 26th 2004 it did $3.3 million on the weekend and when it was all said and done the film grossed around $13.5 million. On the other hand, (a much bigger one) Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, with a budget of $26 million, did $26.7 million on its opening weekend (March 19th 2004) and $58.9 million overall. (IMDB) I think that this directly hurt Shaun of the Dead, because in so many ways it’s a better movie than Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, (visual story telling, character development, writing, acting, directing, to name a few) but what Dawn of the Dead had the Shaun didn’t was: the finical resources and script to market to a more general demographic. With all that being said money is still not what makes a movie good or ‘successful’, I am sure the producers’ and everyone involved in Shaun of the Dead were happy making north of $8 million.
What really separates this movie from any other comedy or zombie apocalypse film is Edgar Wright and his ability truly understands how to execute visual comedy successfully. Edgar Wright is one of the only directors in this genre today that is trying to truthfully innovate. Films and television shows including: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Spaced, The World’s End, and Hot Fuzz, are very original in the way they make comedy through cinematic means rather than just dialog. A great example of this is in Shaun of the Dead, the morning of the apocalypse Shaun turns on the TV and instead of him finding out through the usual alarming news clip or having a zombie burst through the door, he unknowingly gets the whole story while flipping through channels, we get: The news, "Although no one official is prepared to comment, religious groups are calling it Judgment Day. There's..." cut to the Clash, "...panic on the streets of London..." "...as an increasing number of reports of..." then a soccer match, "...serious attacks on..." "...people who are literally being..." "...eaten alive..." "...but witness reports are sketchy. One unifying detail seems to be that the attack has, in many instances, appeared to be...” TV off. Watch it out below.
What this scene does is one of the hardest things to do in cinema; it gets boring, obvious, but still valuable, information across to the audience and does it in a funny and visually appealing way. Why it’s funny is because Simon Pegg’s character is completely oblivious to all of it. Another subtle example of Wright’s filmic comedy, is the scene when Shaun tells Liz (Ashfield) he’s going to take her to “the place that does all the fish” he opens the phone book and the restaurants name is literally “The Place That Does All The Fish”, subtle, but hilarious. For more on Edgar Wright’s great visual comedy check out Every Frame a Painting's video.
Visuals aside this film has fantastic writing. There are so many homages to George Romero’s zombie franchise, which is what really separates funny spoofs from bad ones. A few examples of this are: The rifle that in the Winchester is, of course, a Winchester model 66. Which is the same rifle used in Night of the Living Dead (1968), when Shaun is heading to the shop for the first time, a worker on the street is listening to the radio. The newscast mentions a space probe that unexpectedly re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and broke up over England. In Night of the Living Dead (1968), radiation from a satellite returning from Venus was given as a possible cause for the dead returning to life, one of the most obvious reverences to Romero’s classic is when Nick Frost’s character, Ed, yells into the phone to Shaun’s mother, “We’re coming for you, Barbara.” Funnily enough, even though George Romero was given a private viewing of the film, he didn’t even recognize the lift until later when he was having a phone conversation with Edgar Wright.
All and all Shaun of the Dead should be watched by any fan of comedy, Edgar Wright, or zombie films, it may not be for everyone, but it can surely deserve respected as a work of continuing cinematic novelty by Edgar Wright. We need more directors who are genuinely trying to innovate like him.
