Shaun of the Dead 2004
Shaun of the Dead launched the film careers of its writers, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, who also directed and acted (respectively) in the movie. It is basically a zombie movie, but with a strong look at the character, Shaun, Shaun’s floundering relationship with his girlfriend, and whether Shaun can make something more of fhis life than he has so far. It feels a lot like they wanted to write about this character, but got bored, so instead of coming up with some device to make Shaun buckle down and win his girl back, they threw in zombies. This mish mash of genres is maybe one reason critics like it and gives the movie some lightness despite some occasionally gory and horrifying violence. It isn’t incredibly funny, but it works as this everyday guy very slowly realizes the world is being taken over by zombies. Then it has fun with the zombies moving so slowly, the only thing they have really going for them is there are so many of them.
I had seen Hot Fuzz, which Wright and Pegg made after this movie, and while I only gave that movie a B, I went ahead and bought this movie on Blu-ray, but in large part because it was, well, on sale first, but also a steelbook Blu-ray case and I didn’t have any of those yet, and because it included a digital copy. The steelbook is pretty neat, much better than the standard budget Blu-ray which includes the blue plastic case, a piece of paper that slides into the case to make the front and back, and a disk that goes inside. That packaging is so disappointingly basic, but since I buy mostly $5 Blu-rays that is what I usually get. I paid $6 and got the steelbook for a movie I probably wouldn’t have bought otherwise, but which I did want to see.
Anyway, the movie is good, but by no means great. It feels a little too much like a stoner comedy, but still has some surprisingly strong scenes with Shaun and the people in his life. I think they threw enough in there to make it rise above the crowd a little bit, so I will give it a low B+.
Written: 16 Sep 2017
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital