The Comedy Vault – Shaun Of The Dead.

Shaun Of The Dead (2004)

This is a British comedy film, although this could actually be placed into the genre of horror romantic comedy, which must be unique. What attracted me to this one was that the main character was played by Simon Pegg (stop saying “bid, again Simon!“), who had already appeared in various acclaimed TV comedy shows since the mid-90s including Spaced.

Indeed, many felt that this was essentially Spaced The Movie, and it was also one of the first steps to Pegg becoming a rather high-profile film star and going on to appear in various other comedy films. This is also considered to be the first part in “The Cornetto Trilogy”, which also includes Hot Fuzz, which I reviewed a while ago now, along with The World’s End.

It’s a day that is not going rather well for Shaun (and it’s rather convenient that he has that name, you get the feeling that if he was called something like “Trevor” then none of this would probably have happened). He often spends his time in the local pub, alongside his mate (trusty sidekick Nick Frost), to the point that he is dumped by his girlfriend.

He decides that he must win her back, but he runs into a slight problem when a rather large amount of zombies appear out of nowhere, and get right in his way. At least he’ll have a good story to tell when he does eventually make it back to the pub. And of course, he also learns a lot of about himself along the way, like the fact that he likes to give zombies a good slapping.

Shaun Of The Dead was a rather big success. I remember that this was released at around the same time that I started to buy Time Out regularly, and there were several issues containing a full-page advert, and they were also among the group of critics who thought that this was a good film. And there are a lot of extras on the DVD, that run to a total that is almost as long as the actual film.

These include the usual outtakes and a look behind the scenes, and there is also fun with trying to guess the people who have been in make-up all day so that they can be in the big zombie crowd too. Isn’t that the guy off Spaced? Well it might be. And this must also be the only DVD that contains plotholes as an extra, taking a look at the mistakes and unresolved stories. How post-modern.

This is definitely a popular film that quickly gained a cult following, bringing something new to the genre, and also won several awards. This was a great idea with a great cast. Proof of this is that there have been roughly 20,000 showings on ITV2, but people do always want to watch this. Pegg’s film career took off and he has never looked back really.