Hey folks, Harry here... This film will be being released by Focus Films... and it will be a force of nature that will sweep over the world of film buffs unlike anything in years. Fansites will emerge, you'll do things with a dart you never thought you would do. And everyone, everywhere will carry a cricket bat. You will see...
I went to last night’s screening of Shaun of the Dead with a fairly open mind, considering how much a healthy diet of ‘Spaced’ features in our flat. I was childishly excited at the fact that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the two lead actors of both Spaced and Shaun of the Dead were holding a Q&A afterwards. I knew that there would be far less references for filmophiles in SotD than Spaced but enough to leave us satisfied. I wasn’t disappointed. The story centres around Shaun and his pals in suburban London. His relationship with his girlfriend is rapidly falling to pieces, his best mate, Ed, is sleeping on his sofa, in between smoking dope and going to the pub, his flat mate is a tosser, his step dad Phil (Bill Nighy who looks undead anyway) is a weirdo and his job sucks. And then the zombies arrive. In fact they’re pretty much everywhere before Shaun even notices. (Pegg noted at the Q&A that a large part of the film was taking a dig at the impersonal feel of London). He walks past half a dozen of them on his way to the shops the morning after a huge piss up with Ed, refusing to give spare change to one in particular. After their first encounter with a zombie who they think is simply a very drunk regular at the pub wandering around the garden, they take flight to rescue Shaun’s mum (Penelope Wilton from BBC’s prim and proper Ever Decreasing Circles. Genius casting!), who Ed seems to have a thing for. Oh yeah, and Phil’s been bitten by a zombie.
After plenty of quality nonsense and discovering that you have to bash zombies heads in to kill them, they head off to pick up Shaun’s girlfriend and her flat mates "A failed actor and a twat", as she puts it. The plan is to take shelter in the pub. And why not? The trouble is getting there. On route they have to bash more zombie heads, take acting lessons on how to "achieve the zombie look" and blend in with a swarm of the undead. After holing up in the pub, it’s Alamo time with much head mashing, dart throwing, pint drinking and battering the zombie landlord to Queen’s ‘Don’t stop me now’ with pool cues. Some die, some live, you’ll find out when you see it. The aftermath of the zombie rampage is one of the funniest bits in the film, in which through flicking the t.v. channels we see zombie game shows, talk shows and government run schemes employing zombies. Basically, I laughed from start to finish. Whether it was Ed deliberately ploughing do! wn zombies in Phil’s Jaguar or the absurdity of taking acting tips from a zombie who’s been impaled to a tree by a Swing-ball garden tennis set. The background action was hilarious especially before Shaun realises what’s going on. Zombies rampaging around with Shaun oblivious to the undead cannibalism going on around him.
I liked the Romero references and there are a fair few nods to the subsequent follow-ups. Pegg stated that he admired the creature that Romero had created, a hybrid of Mummy and Werewolf. The zombies in SotD are Romero’s. Slow, moaning and rotting with a hunger for flesh. The absurdity of the prospect of a British zombie rom-com is appealing to the masses already and rightly so. If the British film industry kept churning out Hugh Grant movies, the planet would soon believe that Blighty is full of middle-class twats whose comedic talent is limited to mumbling the word "bugger" and expecting us to piss ourselves laughing.
With Spaced, and now Shaun of the Dead, a fresh, exciting wave of modern British comedy has been unleashed, not only featuring most of Britain’s new young comedy acting talent but the sharp eye and mind of writer-director Edgar Wright. Actor and co-writer Simon Pegg strikes me as an average guy who writes exceptional comedy about average guys. The dialogue in SotD flows with the normality of comedy banter between mates and appeals to the audience on the other side of the Hugh Grant coin. A friend of mine remarked recently that watching Spaced was like watching ourselves on t.v. It would be hard to say this about SotD, what with the zombies but there’s no denying the bond you feel with the characters simply due to the fact that, well, they’re us. They work shitty jobs (if they work at all), go to the pub too much, fight with their flat-mates and get random hangover cravings for ice creams. Even the locations and set dressing had a normal feel to! them. The film is set in suburban London and that’s what you get. No Tower of London, no Buckingham Palace, no flashy penthouse apartments, no fancy interiors. Just good old scabby normality. With plenty of zombies.
You guys will love this film. I hope it makes it across the pond. Pegg said it didn’t have a distributor yet, which is odd considering Universal have it over here. Please feel free to harass them until it’s released. You must see this film. It’s fucking hilarious, it’s clever, it’s gross, it’s fairly cool whilst incorporating the Python element of stupidity. And most importantly, it’s new British comedy. And the future looks fucking dazzling.
Highlander.
