Movie Review: Shaun of the Dead
Oh, zombie movies. What other genre provides both informed social satire and graphic cannibalistic disemboweling? Ever since George Romero let zombies loose in the mall in the original Dawn of the Dead, filmmakers have been toying with the metaphor of zombie as the modern man; lurching around aimlessly in masses, concerned only with their selfish, primal desires—which are, for the most part, an unquenchable hunger for “brains, delicious brains.”
While the metaphorical connection is easily made, the style of filmmaking is hard to pull off effectively. Too much gore and the film cannot be taken seriously; too much symbolism and the horror audience will become bored. A combination of horror and comedy is even more difficult. They require impeccable timing and a very careful sense of tone on the part of the film director.
Only very talented filmmakers can successfully combine the two elements in a single movie. To add social commentary to the mix is an even riskier task. Getting all three right and balanced is nearly impossible. But that is exactly what British co-writers Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have accomplished with Shaun of the Dead, a near perfect genre movie.
The first 20 minutes of the film play very much like a contemporary British comedy. It is a gentle, realistic satire on the banality of modern life. The film’s conclusion—minus a comedic epilogue—plays out like a hardcore zombie movie, with a barrage of anguish, pain and gore.
Somehow, the bulk of the movie gradually shifts between the two generic polar opposites. At first the zombies slowly seep into the background of the film, only gradually becoming more threatening.
It was fun to see this transition play out on an unsuspecting audience. At first the theater was filled with laughter. Their relaxed chatter filled the quiet moments of the film, but by the end of the movie any quiet moment was met with a cold, scared silence. That’s not to say this transition is accomplished perfectly. In fact, this change from caricature to psychologically real may have been a little overly ambitious for these first-time filmmakers.
The film’s only flaws are that a few dramatic sequences played a little too early, and a few jokes played a little too late. One dramatic, confessional scene involving Bill Nighy is so out of place it feels as though the scene was added to give the film’s most recognizable actor something extra to do. All of the film’s other tonal inconsistencies are forgivable, but this one scene feels out of place and unnecessary.
Nonetheless, these complaints are minor, and perhaps the problem with the Bill Nighy scene is simply that it is the first purely dramatic character scene in the movie. It could be that any of the other subsequent scenes of this sort would have been just as awkward had they come first.
Still, Shaun of the Dead is not just an experiment in genres. It’s a film filled with startling satiric takes on modern life both through the humans and the zombies.
Director, Edgar Wright fills the movie with elaborate camera moves and lightning fast editing, but his style never feels out of place. His most ambitious tracking shot—covering two blocks and moving in and out of a convenience store—is played twice, once before the zombies take over and once after. The idea behind each shot is to show the main character’s ambivalence towards his surroundings, both before and after zombies conquer his neighborhood. These sequences are stylistically ambitious, but also help impart very crucial information to the viewer.
The cast consists of British sit-com stars, mostly from director Wright and star Simon Pegg’s sitcom Spaced. All prove successful in their comedic and dramatic handling of their characters, and given the nature of the film this is crucial. Even one poor performance would have thrown the entire balance of the film off, but all the actors, especially Pegg and Nick Frost, excel in their roles and sell the film. Despite shifts from comedic performances to dramatic ones, the actors manage to always keep their characters believable.
The most impressive element of Shaun of the Dead may be this firm grounding in everyday urban life. The recent trend in British comedy, epitomized by Ricky Gervais’ brilliant The Office, is to play the mundane, everyday events of life for laughs. Comedic exaggeration is still present, but always with a firm foundation in common experience. This tone fits in perfectly with the horror elements.
The best zombie movies always play the monsters straight; it is placing them in the real world that makes them so terrifying. Most comedy-horror fusion films of the past played both the comedic and horror elements to their stylistic extremes. The results were grotesque, slapstick-horror cartoons such as The Evil Dead trilogy, Dead Alive, and Re-Animator. While Shaun of the Dead has its share of this slapstick-horror, it is the emphasis on the realistic elements of the genres that makes it so original and interesting. In that respect, the film it is most similar to is John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London.
The film was clearly made with great care and an attention to detail that will allow it to stand up to repeated viewings.
In the end, Shaun of the Dead is a great horror film, filled with references to horror films of the past that will keep the fanboys happy. But, it is also a great comedy and should play just as well to an audience not as familiar with the complete horror canon. It is a surprisingly original, if imperfect, film that will surely become a cult classic.
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