Well, Danny Boyle’s somewhat derogatory attitude towards
‘genre’ cinema seems to have annoyed the Spaced crowd.
There are quite a few digs at his movie
28 Days Later
littered throughout this one. Even though there are scores of the flesh
munching monsters around, the characters in this movie don’t like to mention
the word zombie because "That’s ridiculous isn’t it?"
I discovered the sitcom
Spaced
quite late in the day, I’d heard it was a great programme for media buffs, but
for whatever reason I’d just never gotten around to catching it. When I did I
kicked myself for not doing so earlier, great comedy, great visuals, great
characters, surprisingly serious moments (well handled) and also an extra
layer of references for those who will appreciate them. All of these have been
carried over to Shaun Of The Dead and have been added to.
Shaun's (Simon Pegg life is going nowhere, just about everyone knows it but him, and he’s
starting to wake up to the fact. The only person who seems oblivious to it is
Shaun’s loyal but lazy flatmate Ed (Nick Frost), a man with pretty much no ambition whatsoever.
Shaun’s girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) is growing weary of his refusal
to try and move on, and, after he botches his last chance, dumps him. To add to
this, Shaun’s rather scary stepdad is pressuring him to make more of an effort
with his mother, who Shaun’s been neglecting as of late.
Thusly, Shaun wakes up one morning with a mission, to get his life back on
track, to visit his mom and to get his girlfriend back. Challenging tasks, to
be sure, made doubly hard by the hordes of walking dead now crowding the streets
of London intent on eating any survivors.
British cinema seems to have been in the doldrums as of late, churning out
worthy social dramas with little chance of succeeding, Mockney gangster movies
and (mostly) bland rom-coms… In the past few years U.K. filmmakers seem to have
taken note of the re-emerging popularity of horror movies, and have been starting
to diversify their output somewhat, with differing levels of success. Long
Time Dead and Deathwatch are best forgotten, the former should first
be burned though, by the Djinn it raised… 28 Days Later is a flawed curio with
a great first two acts let down by the third, and then there was Dog Soldiers.
Dog Soldiers was a breath of fresh air, made on a low budget by fans of
the horror genre, and revelling in its staples. It didn’t take itself too seriously,
didn’t try to pretend it was more than it was and the makers didn’t look down
on the intended audience. It did do everything it was meant to do, it was
exciting, scary, funny, and it under-performed at the cinema due to its
guycentric nature and the apathy of British audiences. I half-fear a similar
fate for Shaun of The Dead but this might not be the case as there’s
plenty here to hold the interest of both sexes.
The acting is good all round and, for a horror comedy, the wise decision has been made to populate it with cast members
from (decent) British sitcoms. Simon Pegg (Spaced) makes a good lead, showing some pretty good acting chops in the movie’s
more serious moments. Pegg is ably supported by Nick Frost (Spaced), Dylan Moran (Black Books), Lucy Davis (The Office),
Kate Ashfield, and the quickly becoming ubiquitous, Bill Nighy.
The film is directed by Edgar Wright and is co-written by Wright and Pegg. The script is intelligent, very funny and
contains quite a few scares. It is also pretty ruthless with its’ characters,
you’re just never quite sure who is going to make it to the end credits in one
piece. The media references are toned down for the film, but there are a couple
including a nice scene where our group meet up with some of their co-stars from
their respective TV shows.
Edgar Wright is a great visual stylist and makes good use of the 2:35:1 ratio. He pulls off some pretty good camera tricks
in the film, most impressive are the two tracking shots early in the film following Simon Pegg down the street to the
corner shop. Thankfully he’s also decided not to hold back on the gore, ‘Shaun’ is surprisingly gory for its 15-certificate,
so those of a queasy disposition might want to take note.
I can recommend this movie without hesitation, it has some good jumps, it’s surprisingly tense in places, well written,
acted and directed, and it’s also ‘laugh out loud’ funny to boot (the audience I saw it with had a great time). Go see it
now, and send a message to British filmmakers that this is the type of movie we want to see more of!
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
