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Shaun of the Dead with Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield

Shaun of the Dead with Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield
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Synopsis of the DVD Movie: Shaun of the Dead with Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield

An everyday tale of life, love and the living dead focusing on a group of friends who encounter a literal night from hell at their local pub, under attack from a zombie holocaust.

DVD Movie Rating for: Shaun of the Dead

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Movie Plot of: Shaun of the Dead

This laddish spin on the zombie classic Dawn of the Dead was a huge hit in the UK. Fans of Re-Animator, get ready; the team behind the cult TV show Spaced has made a (very) bloody-smart horror-comedy that delivers equal doses of humour and viscera. Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a slacker who shares a house with his best pal (Edgar Frost), a slovenly couch potato. Shaun’s whole existence revolves around visits to the pub, much to his girlfriend’s chagrin. With such a near-comatose lifestyle, he fails to notice that strange things are starting to occur around him. There are dead people walking the streets and news reports about a virus. Oblivious to the mayhem, he’s more interested in patching up his dire relationship with his girlfriend, until a blood-stained zombie gatecrashes his world. With all hell breaking loose, Shaun (armed with cricket bat and Dire Straits LPs) wants to gather the people he loves and hide out in his local pub. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exactly go to plan. A sure-fire crowd pleaser that is so genuinely affable you can’t help being seduced by its charm.

DVD Production Details of: Shaun of the Dead

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost

DVD Features:
• Special Feature Information:
° Extended Bits
° Outtakes
° The Man Who Would Be Shaun
° Funky Pete
° Plot Holes
° T4 With Coldplay
° Fun Dead
° Trisha Your Nine Lives Are Up
° Trisha I Married A Monster
° Jeremy Thomson Interview
° Photogallery
° 2000AD Strip
° Poster Designs
° Diaries From Simon Pegg Lucy Davis And More
° Edgar And Simons Flip Chart
° SFX Before And After
° Make Up Tests
° Making Of Featurette
° Fright Fest 2003 Teaser
° Official Teaser
° Official Trailer
° TV Spots
° Simon Pegg And Edgar Wright Audio Commentary
° Simon Pegg Nick Frost Dylan Moran Kate Ashfield And Lucy Davis Audio Commentary
° Bill Nighy And Penelope Wilton Audio Commentary
° The Zombies Audio Commentary
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35 Anamorphic Wide Screen
• Available Audio Tracks: Dolby Digital 5.1

DVD Easter Eggs

None

Cast of the movie: Shaun of the Dead

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Reviews of the movie: Shaun of the Dead

Shaun is in his late twenties and works in a electrical store with teenagers. He hangs out with his slobbish friend and spends every evening in the Winchester pub. Fed up with this, his girlfriend dumps him, leaving him with the words of his other flatmate ringing in his ears - `sort your life out'. His plans take an unexpected turn when he and Ed eventually notice that London's populace has mostly given into a virus that turns them into, well, the Z word. Shaun and Ed devise a plan to keep safe and rescue Shaun's mother and ex.

Although the makers were cursing themselves for the unfortunate timing of this film's release with the (much bigger budget) remake of Dawn of the Dead - however for me this served as a rather nice experience after the straight-scares of Dawn. A point to note for all those moaners, is that this film went into production before the remake did. Anyway, ignoring this issue it is important to note that the film is a very British affair and is aimed at a very particular sense of humour. In essence, if you love Spaced then you'll enjoy this. The film is NOT a spoof - it is a horror movie with laughs, not unlike Evil Dead in that regard. The gags are good but not as fast as Spaced fans will be used to - instead they are put in with the horror rather than being forced over the top of it.

The film has movie references, but not to the point where they become the gags themselves (Spaced's cutaways for example). In place of that we have references to Deer Hunter and The Matrix that are funny but will not spoil things for you if you don't spot them. I laughed throughout but it is important not to expect to be rolling in the aisles - the film is still a horror, not a Naked Gun style spoof.

As a horror, the film is not really scary but does have a good gutful of gore to go around. The zombies are slow, and this will not work for modern audiences, but it does hark back to the old zombie flicks and also allows the material to work. I closed my eyes a few times as the film provided blood, and it does have the odd moment that is touching. Of course the laughs are everything and, aside from a slow start and a more horror-focused ending, this is consistently funny.

The one thing that it also does well is have a slight satirical edge to it. It is delivered rather heavily (early scenes of hooded youths lumbering around force the point home too heavily) but it is still true - having done my shopping in Asda just before seeing this film I can definitely contest that many of us lumber around in a semi-trance! This is a nice touch - the Dawn remake lacked any of the comment that it's original made, so it is good to have some here. Again however, non-Brits may not totally pick up on this as we seem to be one of the few countries that has this pub-orientated culture.

The cast are great and will be full of faces recognisable from the TV series that this film will draw the majority of it's fans from. Pegg is great, he is a slightly more advanced version of his Spaced character and he makes for a good leading character simply because he is so recognisable - this is not a Hollywood film with characters we don't know, but instead a bloke from a pub. Despite the fact that I would hate Ed in real life, Frost is hilariously exaggerated. He looks very different from Spaced but he does well with the material. Ashfield is spunky and the only downside to her is that she would never be with Shaun in the first place. Support is good from Moran, Davis and Nighy. There are plenty of in-jokes for fans, including a great cameo from Stevenson, who also shows up with her own group of friends that mirror Shaun's friends in terms of looks and (pretty much) TV series background (eg Tim from the Office and Fran from Black Books).

Overall this will not please everyone and I fear that some will not laugh as much as the adverts and hype suggested. However it is a good horror comedy and easily the best British film of the year so far - fans of Spaced will notice the joke rate is scaled back but it is still very funny. The humour of Spaced has reached the big screen and is doing good things for the British cinema industry. The makers said they threw so much into the film (horror, comedy, romance, drama, gore) because they didn't think they would be allowed to make another film - I hope to god that is not the case.

It’s no disparagement to describe Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s zombie-rom-com Shaun of the Dead as playing like an extended episode of Spaced. Not only does the movie have the rather modest scope of a TV production, it also boasts the snappy editing, smart camera moves, and deliciously post-modern dialogue familiar from the sitcom, as well as using many of the same cast: Pegg’s Shaun and Nick Frost’s Ed are doppelgangers of their Spaced characters, while Jessica Stevenson and Peter Serafinowicz appear in smaller roles. Unlike the TV series, it’s less important for the audience to be in on the movie in-jokes, though it won’t hurt if you know George Romero’s famous Dawn of the Dead trilogy, which is liberally plundered for zombie behaviour and mythology.

Shaun is a loser, stuck in a dead-end job and held back by his slacker pal Ed. Girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) is exasperated by his lack of ambition and unceremoniously dumps him. As a result, Shaun misses out on what is apparently the end of the world. In a series of beautifully choreographed and edited scenes, including hilarious tracking shots to and from the local shop, he spectacularly fails to notice the death toll and subsequent zombie plague. Only when one appears in their back garden do Shaun and Ed take notice, hurling sundry kitchen appliances at the undead before breaking out the cricket bat. The catastrophe proves to be the catalyst for Shaun to take charge of his life, sort out his relations with his dotty mum (Penelope Wilton) and distant stepdad (Bill Nighy), and fight to win back his ex-girlfriend. Lucy Davis from The Office and Dylan Moran o! f Black Books fame head the excellent supporting cast.

NEW YORK (CNS) -- When the final chapter is written on the history of zombie comedies, a lion's share of the ink will deservedly be devoted to the mordant British import "Shaun of the Dead" (Rogue).

Part gorefest, part laughfest, part apocalyptic love story, the buddy-horror hybrid directed by Edgar Wright is one of the most subversively funny films to come down the pike in awhile; it is also, without question, one of the most gratuitously violent.

Simon Pegg (who shares screenwriting credit with Wright) plays Shaun, a twenty-something slacker stuck in a dead-end job managing an electronics store in a suburb of London. Just when his life couldn't possibly get any worse, his long-suffering girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) dumps him because of his lack of commitment and his reluctance to curtail time spent with his oafish, drug-dealing flatmate Ed (Nick Frost).

His Murphy's Law misfortunes go from dismal to disastrous when he wakes up to discover that London has become the site of an inexplicable plague turning most of the locals into flesh-eating zombies overnight. Now it's up to Shaun and Ed to round up friends and family and bushwhack their way through masses of London's reanimated residents, bunkering themselves in the short-lived safety of -- where else? -- their favorite pub.

In addition to the unabashedly obvious influence of George Romero's seminal "Dawn of the Dead," "Shaun of the Dead" borrows from a number of cinematic sources, including Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" and John Carpenter's 1976 "Assault on Precinct 13."

Already well-known across the pond, the slovenly and sallow Pegg is perfectly cast as the feckless-to-fearless hero. The rest of the ensemble is equally fine, especially Bill Nighy as Shaun's creepy-enough-alive stepdad.

What makes this probable-cult-classic stand out from the recent rash of zombie-themed movies is its waggish blend of droll black comedy and horror conventions. More satire than sendup, "Shaun" relies on straight humor for its laughs rather than the self-conscious spoofing of other films exhibited in the "Scary Movie." Perhaps the funniest moment comes during the coda, when, the pandemic having passed and normal life resumed, England organizes a benefit concert called "Zomb-Aid."

It must be emphasized that the movie is extremely bloody and includes several scenes of people being torn apart by the lumbering Londoners, who then proceed to gorge themselves with dismembered limbs. It also has some decapitations and an impaling tossed in for good measure. That being said, much of the mindless mayhem is presented with tongue planted firmly in cheek, which tempers -- but hardly excuses -- the repulsiveness of the over-the-top carnage.

"Shaun of the Dead" also offers some biting social satire about modern society, suggesting that the rat race and our catatonic fixation with TV and video games has set us on the path to zombiefication more surely -- if not as swiftly -- than any extraterrestrial epidemic.

Due to excessive graphic and gory violence, recurring rough and crude language, and much vulgar humor, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.

Simon Pegg insists his horror flick Shaun of the Dead is just another sweet romantic British comedy. "It's really no different in its themes than films like Notting Hill or Love, Actually,'' says Pegg, from his offices in London. "It's about life and love. We just added some zombies."

Pegg, 34, not only co-wrote Shaun of the Dead with director Edgar Wright, but plays the film's title character and unlikely hero. Already a major hit in Britain, Shaun of the Dead could be this year's 28 Days Later, an independent film about zombies that crosses the Atlantic and makes a big splash in North America. It opens locally on Friday.

Shaun is a thirtysomething slacker who works in an electronics store. His girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) is about to dump him because his whole life seems to revolve around the local pub and his deadbeat roommates who are about to become a lot deader.

"Edgar and I are both huge fans of genre films, especially horror. Shaun of the Dead is our tribute to (George Romero's) Dead trilogy."

Pegg says he became fascinated with horror films in his early teens.

"My teens corresponded with the explosion of video in Britain in the 1980s. Teens are not allowed into horror films in Britain so it was a huge boon for us when they started releasing them on video."

Pegg recalls that because teens under 18 were still not legally allowed to rent horror titles, "it took a combination of morally loose moms and obliging older brothers, but my mates and I got to spend our weekends watching movies like American Werewolf in London, The Howling and The Thing."

Pegg still remembers the day his little group screened Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

"Zombies immediately became my favourite horror creature. Dawn of the Dead was banned in Britain for many years so it became the stuff of legend. When I finally got to see it, I was not the least bit disappointed. It's a true zombie classic."

Some 15 years later, Pegg found himself working with Wright on the cult British TV series Spaced.

"There was an episode in which my character, Tim, had to battle zombies. We had such fun doing that episode that Edgar and I decided to make a romantic zombie comedy feature film."

That was back in 2001 just after they'd completed a second season of Spaced.

"It took us two years to write the film and put the funding together. We finished filming in July of 2003."

Made for $8 million US, Shaun of the Dead grossed close to $20 million in its British theatrical release earlier this year.

"It just came out on DVD two weeks ago and has already gone platinum, which means we've sold more than 350,000 units."

Pegg admits he was "a little surprised the film became a mainstream hit. We thought we were making it for fans of Spaced, but it went way beyond that."

Hundreds of those Spaced fans are actually in Shaun of the Dead.

"We put out a casting call on the web pages of the fan sites asking for volunteers to play the zombies. We told people we couldn't pay them very much but we'd feed them and they'd get to meet all the people from Spaced."

It was a lively, enthusiastic horde that turned up to play the film's walking dead.

And a future true romantic zombie comedy was born.

Shaun of the Dead

Creepy, disgusting, kinda almost touching and outrageously funny, this British smash hit should not possibly be able to make so many disparate elements work—and yet it does. Shaun (Simon Pegg, who also co-scripted) is an underachieving 29-year-old Londoner with a dead-end retail job, a dead-end best friend (Nick Frost) and a longtime girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) fed up with a guy whose idea of romance is pints at the pub. But he gets the chance to be an unlikely hero by leading a rag-tag group of human survivors after the shambling, flesh-eating undead overrun the city. Both an effective straight-ahead zombie thriller and a brilliant parody of zombie thrillers—including a great late swipe at 28 Days Later—director/co-writer Edgar Wright’s freaky hybrid boasts some of the hugest laughs of the year and a few wonderful performances to go with its sporadically effective attempts at character drama. You won’t often find a movie where a fart gag turns into a bittersweet goodbye, all while blood is flowing from zombie bite wounds. That the mix is this relentlessly entertaining qualifies as a minor miracle

INTERVIEW WITH SIMON PEGG AND EDGAR WRIGHT:

What's your writing process like? Do you just toss ideas back and forth?
SIMON PEGG: That's what we kind of do, really. We sit in the same room and we just sort of go over stuff and gradually, through different drafts, through like flip charts and index cards, get it down to a writeable premise.

Who reins who in? If you're going too far out, who pulls the other back?
SIMON PEGG: Edgar's quite disciplined whereas I'm quite flaky. So in terms of actually getting to work and getting down to business, Edgar's the motivator.

EDGAR WRIGHT: We don't really rein each other in, particularly. I suppose because we come from a sort of comedy background, I suppose we certainly discuss things in terms of joke logic.

SIMON PEGG: Just never tell two jokes at the same time.

EDGAR WRIGHT: Yeah, the Rule of Three and all that kind of thing. It's interesting coming from a comedy perspective and then applying that to drama and genre as well.

You guys developed your own sort of genre with this movie.
SIMON PEGG: Although we're not, strictly speaking, we're not actually the first romantic zombie comedy because I mean "Brain Dead" - there was a romance in there. "Return of the Living Dead Part III" is a bit of a love story.

EDGAR WRIGHT: But the difference is, what we wanted to do with this which hadn't really been done before particularly, was the idea of having a horror comedy which doesn't really feature any horror until like minute 30. Whereas with maybe like "American Werewolf in London," kind of like the shit starts happening about 7 minutes in. "Brain Dead" has a prologue which is extremely violent. We loved the idea of easing you into a false sense of security. It's actually kind of nice watching it with audiences, because they get into it almost to the point where they've forgotten that there are zombies about to come. So kind of having that first half hour with no zombies is something that we really wanted to do, and try and pull off, really.

SIMON PEGG: But actually, there are zombies. If you look for them, you can see them.

EDGAR WRIGHT: But not in terms of the killings.

SIMON PEGG: Right, [it's 30 minutes before] the main characters actually realize what's going on. And also we wanted to take a very sort of British style of romantic comedy, in the vein of Richard Curtis and stuff and people in London - and then subvert it. In that respect, it was a kind of first.

You don't have to be familiar with your previous work to get "Shaun of the Dead." It translates well without prior knowledge of your work together.
EDGAR WRIGHT: I would hope so. It's the same in the UK as well. It wasn't just fans of our show that went to see it at the cinema. It's kind of like a bunch of people who'd never seen [our show]. The show we did in the UK was kind of a big cult kind of success, so it has a big and diverse following but it wasn't like "Friends" kind of ratings. But in that case, it was great because all of our fans came to see the film and a whole bunch of people who were new to us as well. And then over here it's great because it just works in its completely own way.

SIMON PEGG: In some respects, it's good that perhaps people over here will go see it and then maybe go and see "Spaced" because they will not have come across our style before. It's nice they're coming to it completely fresh here.

When you're writing, does one of you ever think something's funny and the other doesn't?
SIMON PEGG: It's more about things being appropriate. Generally speaking, if something's funny we'll both find it funny to a lesser or greater degree. It's more about time or if it's appropriate, or if it might reduce the dramatic tension or something such as that.

EDGAR WRIGHT: Yeah, you more get into a thing writing a film where you think - in fact it's different from doing the show - where you kind of think, "Is our character witty enough on the spot to say it?" And one of the things that was different between doing the show and doing this is we wanted to make it kind of realistic, so people don't come out with smartass lines. So a lot of the comedy comes from the naturalism of it and their reactions. Sometimes you think of a really cool line or a funny joke, but you actually take it out because you think you wouldn't be able to say that. You wouldn't think of it, you wouldn't be that sharp. It was more about keeping it real.

SIMON PEGG: Yeah. We didn't want our characters to be particularly sassy or clever. We didn't want Shaun to be like Ash in "Evil Dead," you know, constantly coming out with these fantastic little one-liners. He's not that clever and he's not that bright. So I mean, we had to rein in the humor, and it came from them. They're not particularly self-aware. They're not very knowing, these characters.

The character development in this movie will probably take audiences by surprise.
EDGAR WRIGHT: That was the other thing. One of the inspirations for doing it was because we'd always been big fans of the genre, and when we first thought about the idea of doing a zombie film, we wanted to find the thing that hadn't really been done post-"Brain Dead" and even "From Dusk to Dawn," doing a different spin on a comedy horror film. And the thing that we kind of thought is that a lot of horror films, you kind of get thrown into the situation very quickly so you only really see the characters in them in an after-the-fact kind of thing. Especially in zombie films. "Night of the Living Dead," "Day of the Dead," "Dawn of the Dead," you don't see any of the characters lives before shit happens. The main thing we wanted to do with this is to get to know everybody, so that then the whole comedy and the drama just comes from not how much things change but how little things change. That's kind of the joke and the central conceit. And also that's the kind of thing, you know, in a crisis whether it's in war or whatever, people don't suddenly change what they're like. Just because the world's ending doesn't mean that people who are idiots stop being idiots (laughing). Do you know what I mean?

Yes, dumb people don't suddenly become brain surgeons.
EDGAR WRIGHT: Exactly.

SIMON PEGG: The same thing happens with [your life]. There are people you don't like, you're still frightened of spiders. Your life remains exactly the same it's just that there's this new thing going on. Weirdly enough, when we were writing, 9/11 happened during the writing process and it galvanized that sort of suspicion that we had. This massive thing could happen but nothing happens. This cataclysm is going on and yet reality isn't changing, and it's quite a strange thing. I mean, that's at the most serious analysis of it.

How did you come up with your rules on how to kill a zombie?
EDGAR WRIGHT: One of the things about the film is that it takes place completely in George Romero's universe. One of the ideas is that if "Dawn of the Dead" is happening in Pittsburgh, this is what's happening in North London. In terms of like the rules, the folklore, we worked completely within George Romero's universe. Sort of like the idea that it's almost a parallel story.

The chemistry between the roommates is very believable. You get the feeling Simon's character, Shaun, and Nick Frost's character, Ed, have known each other forever.
EDGAR WRIGHT: The good thing there is that Simon and Nick shared a flat together for like seven years.

Does "Shaun of the Dead" reflect your real life relationship?
SIMON PEGG: Oh, very much so. A lot of it was based on our time together. We both used to be 'Ed' [the couch potato who doesn't work] I think was the thing. We had a pub that was our place where we always went; we didn't want to go anywhere else. A lot of that is taken from real life. And my relationship with Nick is such that we're very close and we really are best friends. With Edgar, as well. We don't have to say that much to each other to understand what we mean.

EDGAR WRIGHT: Kind of the part of the girlfriend is almost like me speaking, isn't it?

SIMON PEGG: Yeah.

EDGAR WRIGHT: The part where Liz asks, "Can't we go somewhere else?" Simon and Nick used to go to this particular pub and I live in a different part of London, so I used to always say to them, "Do you guys want to hook up in town? Why don't you come into town?" It was like, "Why do we have to go to the same place every night?" I was like the wife.

Was this really tightly scripted or was there a lot of adlib? SIMON PEGG: Very tightly scripted.

EDGAR WRIGHT: It was very tightly scripted, actually. Mainly because - there's a couple of adlibs - but because of the rhythm of the dialogue and stuff, and because so much dialogue is repeated or there are things that are said in the first half hour that have ramifications later. We'd often find that when actors start riffing on things, we'd have to say, "Oh no, you have to say it like that because that line comes back later."

There's a lot of things to pick up on [during] a second watch, as well, when you kind of know where it's going. There's things that have more resonance when you know what's going to happen. It's been good for the DVD in the UK, people have watched it a lot of times and on the Internet kind of said, "Alright, I've watched it four times and I've just spotted that in the background." Like a lot of the zombies that are significant later on can be seen in early stages. Like the opening credits, for instance, all of those commuters and people in the opening credits all turn up as zombies later. There's a lot of lines that Shaun and Ed and Liz say that kind of have some resonance later on. Some very obvious, and some not so obvious. One of our favorite films is "Raising Arizona." I remember watching that about six times and after the sixth watch, noticing something I'd never noticed before.

Is there a lot of extra stuff you shot that ended up on the DVD?
EDGAR WRIGHT: Not in terms of scenes. There's about six minutes of.not deleted scenes. There's only one or two completely deleted scenes, mostly it's stuff being extended.

SIMON PEGG: There's loads of behind the scenes stuff. We shot loads of that.

EDGAR WRIGHT: Yeah, the DVD is really jam-packed.

SIMON PEGG: There are video diaries of myself, Lucy [Davis], one of the zombies - a friend of ours - did a video diary of his days as a zombie. There's outtakes and we did special little comic strips to describe scenes you didn't see in the film.

EDGAR WRIGHT: To plug the plot holes. We thought we'd explain some of the holes.

I didn't really catch any plot holes.
EDGAR WRIGHT: Well, not so much holes. The ones that we explain on the DVD are not so much plot holes as missing links. It's like where does Shaun run off to when he disappears for like 20 minutes, when he decoys the zombies away. It's like, "Where is he going?" so they explain what he did for 20 minutes.

How did you two originally hook up?
SIMON PEGG: Through a computer dating agency (laughing). We met because Edgar was working with some colleagues of mine. And Edgar had seen me on television doing some stand-up comedy and came up to say hello. Then we ended up.

EDGAR WRIGHT: We did a show together before "Spaced," which was kind of like our hit single (laughing). We did another show before that which was on cable, which was a kind of little seen show but it featured a lot of the people who are both in "Spaced" and Shaun of the Dead." It was a really great, low-budget, experimental working period where we just went crazy and laid down the foundations for "Spaced."

SIMON PEGG: I was very impressed with what I saw Edgar do and when we came to think of a director for "Spaced" - myself and Jessica Stevenson - we immediately thought of Edgar. He was our first and last choice, and fortunately he did it.

The undead have found their way onto the screen once more. No longer are zombie films a victual for late night programming, but they are being resurrected and brought to life in a cinema near you. But "Shaun of the Dead" is not just another zombie film or a parody of the master works by George Romero. It doesn't feel empty like 2002's "28 Days Later" or last year's "Dawn of the Dead" remake; instead it has feelings as well as a conscious.

This British film, directed by Edgar Wright, moves along with the restraint of a young child playing with a balloon in a machine shop. Carefully bobbing around from one close call to the next, seemingly ready to burst and fall apart at any moment, but indefatigably entertaining.

The film's title is a play on the 1978 classic "Dawn of the Dead," a film about a group of individuals who set up base in a shopping mall to fight off the undead masses, and in turn is a commentary on consumerism. That conclusion is justified by the lines from that film about the zombies unconsciously returning to a place where they spent most of their time when they were alive, and the protagonists' enthusiasm for indulging themselves in merchandise which, given the present state of things, is useless. "Shaun of the Dead" follows a similar social commentary by telling the story of deadbeat named Shaun.

Shaun's (Simon Pegg) greatest joy in life is going to the local pub, the Winchester, with all of his friends. Those are basically just his best pal Ed (Nick Frost) and his girl Liz (Kate Ashfield), but Liz's flatmates come along because they have nothing better to do. His biggest concerns in life are his job, his nights at the pub, and his record collection; he's oblivious to the fact that there is an outbreak of the undead all around him. It's not that he doesn't care about those around him, his girl and his mom. He's just too busy doing nothing to realize anything is wrong.

But then he gets a wakeup call when Liz tells him that it's over. She can't date someone who doesn't have any plans for the future. His response is to get drunk and make a note on his fridge before he passes out. That note becomes the catalyst for the story that unfolds the next day.

Shaun could be like anybody going about their day-to-day lives. Push the snooze, press the elevator call button and slip into mindless monotony until the day you die. Working hard for the latest and greatest something we don't need, so we can throw it away three months later. The only thing that evokes any emotion is the gleam on the shiny objects that drive us toward our deaths. The only reason to care about those around us is because we need them to reaffirm our social status based on our material possessions. It is not until we feel death's wicked bite, do we realize that the most important things in life are free.

"Shaun of the Dead" isn't just another gory zombie film. It's a film with heart. It uses more than predictable scare tactics to get a reaction out of the audience

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Last Modified: 10-Jul-2011 12:24