Shaun of the Dead 2004

[8.3/10] Zombie movies have a long history of social commentary and symbolism. Auteurs like George Romero have used the undead to represent prejudice, consumerism, blind loyalty, and scads of other social ills made manifest in horrific terms. That’s one of the features of this particular subgenre -- the concept of brainless, shambling former humans is malleable enough to fit around any number of concepts and themes.

In Shaun of the Dead Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg use it for something much more mundane -- the layabout manchild who’s failed to launch. For once the hordes of reanimated corpses are less about some wide-ranging societal malady, and more about one dude who needs the zombie apocalypse to prompt him to “sort his life out.” It’s subtle, but the movie kicks off with the idea that Shaun is no better than the living dead he’ll eventually do battle with, having failed to advance his life, work, or motivation to where he’s stuck in the same rut at 29 that he was at 12.

That conceit is part of the brilliance of Shaun of the Dead, which comes from the way it so perfectly walks the line between loving homage to the zombie films of old, ridiculous comedy amid a ridiculous setup, and surprisingly potent character drama about one man coming of age late in the day but just in time. It juggles these competing demands nigh-perfectly, with Wright and Pegg putting together an astonishingly well-tuned film that manages thrills, laughs, poignance, and most of all tone along a viscera-draped tightrope.

It works on all counts. Fans of the classic undead flicks will chuckle and cheer with recognition when one of the characters declares “We’re coming to get you, Barbara” or when a pest of a survivor is pulled out of a window a la Day of the Dead. The approach here presages Community’s stellar genre parodies, where there is so much loving attention to detail that it bolsters both the times when the film wants to play the familiar story beats safe and when it wants to poke fun at them.

That knowing approach to the “zomcom” works like gangbusters. Shaun and Ed’s reluctance to use “the z-word” is a fun meta-gag about how rarely the famed designation is actually spoken aloud in zombie movies. The invocation of common tropes like the survivor who tries to hide that they’ve been bit, the group having to pretend they’re zombies to avoid detection, or a character having to face down an undead version of a loved one is played for both laughs and pathos. This is clearly a movie whose creatives are deeply familiar with the genre they’re spoofing, paying tribute to, and using for compelling character beats, which is what allows them to mix and match those moods so deftly.

At the same time, Pegg and Wright are not afraid to get downright goofy with the proceedings. Watching Shaun and Ed ineffectively toss household detritus at a pair of walkers while arguing over which records to use as ammo is a big laugh. Their crew whacking at an advancing attacker to the beat of a Queen song is delightfully silly. And the life and death stakes of the scenario don’t stop the main character or his pals from dropping wry bits of gallows humor or loopy routines in between encounters with the flesh-eating monsters.
Of course, this is an Edgar Wright movie, so the script plays out like clockwork. Brief mentions of Di as a “failed actress” come back into play when she has to coach up the survivors to act like zombies. A hinted at but unseen skirmish in the second act comes back in a big way in the third act. Video game terminology turns into vital (and amusing) real world strategy. Off-hand quips pre-outbreak become meaningful portents once the undead invasion is in full swing. Wright is the king of setup and payoff, so there’s hardly a stray comment or visual framing that doesn't come back with a twist or an echo or an extra laugh down the line.

Wright’s also a superb sculptor of sequences and images. Some of them are flashy, like a neat shot of our heroes through the hollowed-out hole in a zombie torso, but some are more subtle, like a tableau of the survivors in the Winchester that positions everyone neatly in the frame. He and his team do well to establish long, well-blocked shots of Shaun going about his daily life, only to mirror and recontextualize those scenes once the extras of his routine have turned into zombies. And as with everything in this film, Wright and company are able to walk the line between humor and excitement with the action scenes, evoking some genuine terror when the biters advance on the survivors and our heroes fight back, but also leaning into the lunacy of a random London schlub wacking at corpses with a cricket bat.

But so much of that excellent attention to detail comes back around when Shaun of the Dead wants to play things seriously and isn’t just having a laugh. Barbara’s mantra that she “doesn't want to make a fuss” becomes much more meaningful after she’s hiding a zombie bite and Shaun has to contend with the reality that his mom’s going to die. A running gag where Shaun replies to any invocation of his stepfather, Philip, with a retort of “he’s not my dad,” takes on new, poignant meaning after Philip’s dying declaration of love before succumbing to the zombie virus. Pegg and Wright use their call and response, and their tightly-honed scene construction, to pay homage to George Romero’s filmography and to craft their own silly sequences, but they also use it for genuine pathos, for affecting drama, and most importantly, for character growth.

That puts Shaun of the Dead in line with so many of its undead flick forebears that the movie pokes fun at and pays tribute to. These movies lured audiences in with the prospect of monster mash horror, but lingered in people’s memories because of vivid characters and because of a social subtext reflected in all those shuffling corpses. This movie will absolutely work for anyone just wanting a good time involving ample chuckles and some zombified comic adventures.

But it also uses the oncoming zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for Shaun waking up and growing up. The key scene of the film comes when Philip tells Shaun that he always thought Shaun had it in him to do great things; he just needed the right motivation. There’s comic irony to the fact that this motivating turning point happens to be the reanimation of corpses from the grave, but Wright and Pegg don’t skimp on using that fact to tickle the audience’s funny bone at the same time they cannily show a slacker manchild growing up in real time beneath a blood-spattered cricket bat.

In an ideal world, none of us would need a zombie uprising to take the initiative and turn around our lives. But Shaun of the Dead has its title character accept adulthood in all that mandibular mania -- reckoning with his best friend, having to say goodbye to his parents, and becoming a true and reliable partner to the woman he loves. Few coming of age stories, if any others at all, pay such brilliant homage to classic horror films, elicit such genuine laughs from blood-spattered slapstick, or make the human drama so real and even moving. And yet for this shuffling subgenre, the approach and success are remarkably true-to-form.