Shaun of the Dead (2004) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 19

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Can we all agree that zombie is a divisive word?

Shaun of the Dead creates the perfect amount of poking fun of horror films as it does at creating an actual horror film. It provides audiences with a memorable and unique type of zombie film that expands the genre while still pointing out its contrivances.

Before Viewing

Knowing anything about Edgar Wright’s previous work will set the tone for this trailer, which starts as a traditional romantic comedy, but soon turns into a full-fledged zombie film. Characters are chased by zombies through suburbia and use cricket bats and vinyl records to try to stop them, before pretending to be zombies themselves. Simon Pegg stars in Shaun of the Dead, which is live now.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

Liz (Kate Ashfield) tells her boyfriend Shaun (Simon Pegg) they are breaking up due to his meandering nature in life and inability to change. Shaun’s flatmate Pete (Peter Serafinowicz) is constantly upset at Shaun’s slacker behavior with best friend Ed (Nick Frost), who doesn’t even live with them. Shaun is disrespected by co-workers and gets tough love from his step-father Philip (Bill Nighy). The only person that seems to love Shaun for who he is, is his mother, Barbara (Penelope Wilton), who he constantly misses bi-monthly visits with.

Shaun is oblivious to strange goings, such as blood stains on the freezer and shambling people on the street, as he walks to his corner store for a soda and Cornetto. The two chums find what they believe to be a drunk woman in the garden, but turns out to be one of two zombies trying to get into the house. They soon realize something is terribly amiss. Ed and Shaun are confronted in the living room by a one-armed zombie that walks into the flat, due to Ed constantly forgetting to lock the door. From there, they decide they need a plan.

They decide to pick up Shaun’s mom, swing by and grab Liz and then come back to their flat and stay safe. Unfortunately their place is not safe, as Pete has turned into a zombie, so they decide to take everyone to the Winchester, their local pub. Unfortunately, things don’t go as smoothly as planned. For starters, they need to bring Philip along with them, only he’s been bit and Shaun is afraid he’ll turn on them. Then at Liz’s apartment he needs to bring her friends Dianne (Lucy Davis) and David (Dylan Moran). They all cram into a small Jaguar as Ed drives poorly through the town. Philip does die and they all abandon the car in the middle of the road to escape on foot.

Working their way through back roads and yards, they come across Shaun’s friend Yvonne (Jessica Hynes), and her group of looks-alikes for Shaun’s group of friends. She and her friends are trying to find help. Traversing a backyard, Barbara is bit, unbeknownst to the others. They then pretend to all be zombies to make the final road crossing to the WInchester. The group devolves into an argument which gets the zombies’ attention. They narrowly escape the undead and are able to enter the pub. Inside the power is out, and David wonders what Shaun’s real plan is.

Once the power returns, the music on the video game Ed is playing attracts a zombified John (Steve Emerson), the owner of the bar, who the group must fend off as “Don’t Stop Me Now,” by Queen, plays uncontrollably on the jukebox. The group uses the gun above the bar to stop him, and David turns it on Barbara as they realize she’s been bit. Shaun becomes extremely defensive, but eventually shoots his mother when she turns into a zombie. David is pulled into a crowd of zombies that break through the door and rip him apart. Dianne races out of the bar through the horde of undead never to be seen again.

Ed gets bit, and he, Shaun, and Liz escape into the cellar, with only two bullets left and no way out. Shaun expresses his love for his best friend, leaving the gun with Ed as he and Liz take an elevator up to the street to make an escape. Suddenly army trucks arrive and the soldiers begin shooting the zombies. Yvonne has managed to get word to the authorities. Six months later, Liz and Shaun are together and living in a much cleaner apartment. Shaun excuses himself to the shed, where a zombified Ed is chained up inside The two play video games together.

“You’ve got a bit of red on you.” – Noel/Philip/Ed/Barbara

Shaun of the Dead is part one of three in director Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy, a loose collection of genre stories all with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The trilogy also includes Hot Fuzz and The World’s End. This film is Wright’s love letter to zombie films and romantic comedies; his ZomRomCom as he calls it. The name of the film is obviously a riff on the 1978 George Romero film Dawn of the Dead, which this film borrows loosely from. It was his first feature film following his successful BBC series Spaced. Most of his films are comedic in nature, however his most recent films Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho forego a lot of comedy for more intense action and horror. I can see that this week is really turning into a week of horror-adjacent films, which was not intended. Between Troll, Heavenly Creatures, The Meg, and The Legend of Boggy Creek, this film may be the closest thing to a traditional horror film.

And like other traditional zombie films, Wright has commentary to make about society. Specifically, he equates modern living to already being a zombie. From Shaun’s gruff shuffle when he wakes up in the morning, to the dim and vacant people on the bus, or the repetitive nature of the cashiers in the store. All the world around Shaun before the actual outbreak is numb and disassociated. Shaun specifically is unaware of what is happening around him as he walks his same path to the store oblivious of the changes around him. How much of that is true in people’s lives? We repeat the same tasks so much (going to work, walking to the store) that they become mundane and banal, as we miss the little differences that make each encounter unique.

But of course, this is where Wright lets his humor, and his cinematic eye, freely run. He shows Shaun walking to the store on two different days, the day before and Z-day, framing each one with the same types of shots and camera angles. On the second time, Shaun fails to notice the zombies that approach him which would freak anyone out, as Shaun does later when he’s finally paying attention. His inattentiveness to notice the giant bloody handprint on the cooler, or the (presumed) patch of blood that he slips on in the store makes it all the more silly, and lets audiences know they’re not in for the same thing they’ve seen before. Besides these repetitive shots, Wright also mirrors a number of sequences. The most obvious is Shaun with his four friends and Mum walking through suburbia to the Winchester. He meets with his female friend Yvonne and her four fiends and Mum. Each member of each group is a doppelganger for a member in the other group which shows that other people have the same idea as Shaun.

Shaun of the Dead makes exemplary use of foreshadowing, which works in two ways. For viewers on their first watch, the lines all appear to be humorous jibs and jabs. But on a repeat viewing, the lines dictate the direction the characters will be taking later in the film. For example Pete, disgusted with Ed mucking up the flat, tells him, “You wanna live like an animal, go and live in the shed.” Funny, and mean, but later Ed actually lives in the shed as a zombified version of himself. The best line that foreshadows the film, and Wright uses a similar sampling in both Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, is spoken by Ed and provides a simple version of the remaining plot. When Shaun asks Ed what they’ll do tomorrow (which turns out to be Z-Day), Ed replies, “Keep drinking. We’ll have a bloody Mary first thing. Have a bite at the king’s head, couple at the little Princess, we’ll stagger back here and bang, we’re back at the bar for shots.” This describes their whole adventures the following day: a zombie named Mary (who is bloody) in the garden, Philip (the King) is bitten on the neck, David and Di (the couple) are at Liz’s house (the little princess), they pretend to be zombies and “stagger” back the pub, before having shots (from a gun) at the bar. Brilliant!

Of all the types of horror films around, Zombie films become repetitive fast. A group of characters mimic the breakdown of society as they are slowly torn apart by themselves and the shambling dead. Shaun of the Dead follows the same basic premise, but the infusion of the traditional RomCom tropes, which are continually interrupted by the zombie outbreak, make for a fresh and funny interpretation. The end of the film indicates that once the outbreak is contained, the world goes back to much the same way it was before. Only this time, zombies are used for entertainment purposes, an idea that George Romero would latch on to when his Living Dead series returned the following year with Land of the Dead.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play the characters in just the right way to take the audience on a fun ride. It’s obvious that they’re buddies, but Ed’s antics do lead to some inevitable problems between the characters. It appears that Ed is actually holding Shaun back, and it just takes an apocalyptic event for him to realize it. From the pop culture references, to the pace and editing of the film, or even the synchronized violence to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” there’s so many things to enjoy in Shaun of the Dead. For true genre aficionados, the horror may not go far enough, but that’s okay, since the technical execution of the film is top notch creating a film that continues to elicit new moments and additional Easter Eggs on each re-watch.

Assorted Musings

• The name of the electronics store Shaun works at is Foree Electric, a reference to Dawn of the Dead star Ken Foree.
• Ed inadvertently quotes Night of the Living Dead when he says “We’re coming to get you, Barbara!”
• Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have cameos in the George Romero 2005 zombie film Land of the Dead as zombies chained up for a photo op.