Shaun of the Dead

Rating:
Summary: Overrated and overhyped, Shaun's a Bomb!!
Review: How this slow paced and dull zombie parody gained the respect of both critics and the mainstream public is beyond me. Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein is a brilliant send up of horror films, this is sluggish and uninspired.
The actors were awful and most of the jokes fell flat, as an avid viewer of zombie films I caught on to most of the sly references, but so what? It just was not funny.
The film is obviously inspired by Romero's Dawn Of The Dead; a plague spreads quickly turning the dead into flesh eating zombies, the survivors find refuge and band together to fight the onslaught of undead cannibals. The details I cannot expand upon as I fell asleep halfway through. Do yourself a favor, if you want to see a great zombie film watch Lucio Fulci's Zombie or Romero's Night Of The Living Dead, the satire in Romero's original Dawn Of The Dead was actually much more profound than this. Rent at your own peril.

Rating:
Summary: So-so
Review: For a British black comedy this one is barely adequete with some good laughs and good zombie makeup. Shaun is a computer salesman who is dumped by his girlfriend and lives with a slacker pal and a mean owner of his apartment, when zombies attack Shaun and slacker Ed with a few other people battle and then get trapped in the local pub. The funny part is when Shaun and Ed are in the backyard and think the zombie is a drunk woman and then start throwing records at two zombies. What really makes the movie so-so is because the scene where the man is ripped apart by zombies that looked so fake and of course copied Day of the Dead and the acting is tepid. Please rent but do not buy. At least watch once or twice.

Rating:
Summary: Finally a great horror comedy!
Review: Horror and comedy don't always mesh well together. Only a few movies have been able to marry both of them successfully with one antoehr (like Raimi's Evil Dead series for instance). Well, our generation finally has its great horror comedy. And it's called Shaun of The Dead.

Shaun is a boring guy who's boring life has lost all of its charms. Now, on the night he breaks up with his girlfriend, he'll be faced with the greatest battle of his life. London is infested with zombies and it will be up to him to save his mother and his ex-girlfriend from this terrible tragedy.

This one is a laugh-a-minute marathon that ends up being pretty scary in its last half hour. As Shaun makes it across London to get from one place to the other, the movie also juxtaposes the fact that we, in real life, have also become zombies. At one point, Shaun is looking at some of the people sitting on a bus with him, and they look exactly like what the zombies are about to look like.

The movie is perfectly cast and the plot brightly written. The balance between horror and comedy is realized in a way that is worthy of all the praise it can get. Neither horror or comedy dominates here.

I'm so happy that this British flick was able to achieve the things it did. Let it be a lesson to filmmakers in North America; remakes aren't original. Flicks like Shaun of the Dead are. This is one horror comedy that will survive the test of time!

Rating:
Summary: Geniuse(which i cant spell) pure geniuse
Review: I am not joking when i say that this is one of the greatest movies ever made. I was laughing my ass off from start to end. The intro to this movie is perfect, AT A BAR. With Shaun his jackass of a friend Ed his girlfriend Liz, and David and Dye. It starts with Shaun just zoning out while his girlfriend is trying to explain something to him, and he justs drinks a pint smokes and nods his head. This movie was prety ridiculus but it actually had a plot that made sence. PLAY VIDEOGAMES SIT ON A COUCH CALL UR ROOMATE A PRIK KILL SOME ZOMBIES GO TO THE WINCHESTER AND GET DRUNK AND WATCH SOME MORE TV.

The perfect movie

Rating:
Summary: Not just funny, it's a little scary too
Review: I have no stomach for horror movies, but I do love a good spoof. This is much different from Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness where the evil dead things do funny stuff. The only funny character in this movie is Shaun, and the reason he is funny is because he is reacting to being stuck in genuine horror movie. Brilliantly written.

Rating:
Summary: BEST ZOMBIE FILM IN YEARS!
Review: If the jokes and sight gags came just a bit more rapid paced you'd swear this film would have been made by the Zucker Brothers. As Airplane skewered Aircraft disaster films and Naked Gun skewered cop dramas, Shaun of the dead is a rousing parody, and yet glorious tribute to zombie films, particularly those of George Romero.

This is one of those films that requires 100% attention as there are just as many things going on in the backgound as there are in the foreground and if you don't pay attention, you'll miss some of the very ingenious tips of the hat that director Edgar Wright gives to those movies that he pays tribute to. Listen to those radio and TV broadcasts playing in the background, keep your eyes on what those zombies are doing way down the street...it's all clever stuff. I particularly love the radio report blaming an American Spacecrafts return descent as a possible explanation of the zombie phenomena.

Shaun takes it's cue mainly from DAwn of the Dead. Shaun is played by Simon Pegg. He's a 29 year old electronics store loser. He's just lost his girlfriend Liz, he's regretting a trip the following day to his mother's house and dealing with his stepfather. He shares a flat with Ed, a lazy, overweight, crude couch potato whose even a bigger loser than Shaun. While out to get some goods from the convenience store, Shaun is completely oblivious to the dead bodies and shambling zombies in his neighborhood. Quite a wonderful skewering of middle America...err...England, just as Romero did in Dawn.

Soon Shaun and Ed encounter the first zombies in their back yard and eventually discover you can take them out in similar Romero fashion by destroying the brain. Thus the pair begins a plan of rescuing Shauns 'mum', his ex Liz, and her friends Dianne and David and taking refuge not in a mall, but in hilarious English style, the local pub! Along the way the little group of survivors dodges zombies through suburban back yards, arguing amongst themselve and even encounters another group of survivors who match them almost identically as if from Bizarro world.

Shaun of the Dead is the best Zombie movie in many years. Better than both "28 Days Later" and the "Dawn" remake because of its style, and also because it follows the number one rule of Zombies: Zombies are SLOW and shambling. They are not sprinters! Shaun's amusing digs of these two films will certainly not be lost on anyone who's seen them. Kudos again for Mr. Wright for calling them out.

If I have one complaint, it's that the last 3rd of the film is played mostly as a straight zombie horror film and the comedy takes a bit of a back seat. But the ending does save it as Director right gives one last bow to George Romero by tipping his hat to "Day of the Dead"

The great DVD is loaded with extras including commentary and deleted scenes. I cannot recommend this one any higher!

Rating:
Summary: Who would have thought? A "smart" zombie movie
Review: Shaun of the Dead does everything a zombie movie needs to do, and it also manages to be an intelligent comedy that says something not only about the protagonist Shaun (Simon Pegg), but about the Britain around him as well. He is, we have the impression, an observant, smart, young-ish man if given the opportunity. You might actually say he's got what it takes to be a leader of other men and women, except there are a few things working against him:

The first is his daily routine, which is fit for a zombie. Every morning he arises, has coffee, toast with jam, dresses for work, heads around the corner to the local Quick-E-Mart, then off to work where his co-workers are practically half his age. Not exactly inspiring; but throught it all we have the sense that were he spurred by something, he might transcend his situation and become what he was meant to be.

The second thing holding him back is his friend Ed (Nick Frost), who has never left the pub in his mind. He's fat, obnoxious, vulgar, probably smelly, and particularily charming in those qualities around Shaun's girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). Ed keep Shaun firmly ensconsed in the local pub, "The Winchester," and is his compatriot in underachievment. Such is the extent of Ed's underachieving ways that when he picks up the apartment, we're not even sure he's done it since the place becomes messy before Shaun gets home. He does have redeeming qualities; at least he's not Pete, the responsible one, whom Shaun would be were it not for the world around him.

Suddenly; in the midst of routine, drinking at the Winchester, dealing with his stepdad Phil (Bill Nighy), and trying to patch things up with Liz, zombies begin to walk the earth. The explanation (and it's very brief) is that it's a sickness infecting the locals. Of course this is a commentary on everyday Britains and their routine; emblematic in Shaun. He is basically the original zombie before people start eating brains. He has no variety in his life, no hopes of breaking out of that humdrum because he lacks the ambition within him. Basically, zombies are humans whose life have betrayed their minds; the only difference with Shaun is that he doesn't moan, lumber around and try to eat people.

Oddly enough, the emergence of zombies gives him exactly what he needs to at least touch on his potential. His stepfather succumbs to the zombies, only after an actually very heartfelt speech that is probably one of three sincere moments that evoke both pity and fear. His problems with Liz evaporate in the face of the greater good, and she actually starts defending his decisions to the obnoxious David who's only there to second-guess Shaun. It's okay though; he dies badly.

The film has some truly hilarious scenes, espcially when they decide which LPs to throw at the zombies to try and decapitate them. The Batman soundtrack doesn't survive this round. Of course who would have thought a cricket bat would work so well? It's a solid zombie-crushing implement; a piece of life in the zombie world.

The extras are great to watch, espcially the Zomb-o-meter, which acts like VH-1's old "Pop Up Videos" where trivia and info pops up on screen as you watch the film.

This is definitely a film for any zombie freak; it does something that a lot of good zombie movies don't make you do, which is laugh deliberately.






Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: This is a product of the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY, so who cares what genre it falls under? This fun flick is a spoof on zombie films in general, and like most zombie films, has some pretty well thought out social commentary embedded into it.

The dry British humor is there, as well as the Western influence. A loyal, good-hearted appliance store manager, whose life consists of playing video games, downing pints, and trying to keep his girlfriend happy is the center. A plague spreads, and soon most of the world has become zombified...it is time for Shaun to step up, save his friends and take charge of his otherwise pathetic life.

Maybe I liked this because I could relate to Shaun. My wife said he reminded her of me, an underachiever (was she ripping on herself, then?). Like many male icons before him- the three stooges, Rodney Dangerfield, and Homer Simpson...there is something about Shaun that should strike a chord in most average men (not that Shaun is a "male icon,' but you know what I'm getting at).

I reccomend this to fans of British comedy and mainstream horror. I knocked off a star, 'cause I thought the actor who played the fatso was pretty horrible.

Rating:
Summary: How could it have been given 4 1/2 stars!?
Review: When I saw this film had been rated 4 1/2 stars I nearly fell out of my chair. Why? because this was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. If you're looking for a synopsis on this movie, look else where. Me and my cousin decided to give this a try. About 3/4 the way through we got up and left. It was just so horrible. It was slow paced, NOT funny, boring, had characters you really hate and are unlike-able, and just made you want to puke. The acting wasn't too bad, but the rest was. I can only remember one funny bit, and it wasn't even that funny. It's a horrible rip-off of 'Dawn of the Dead.'
This movie does not deserve 4 1/2 stars. Awsome movies like The Evil Dead trilogy deserve 4 1/2 stars, even five. But this, no way. I'm guessing the reason why this film was rated so high was because most of the reviewers were British (no offense) and blinded by pride, which they have a right too. But it was just plain horrible. I hope most of you won't vote my review as being bad simply because I hate a movie you like, that's intolerant.
On a last note, rent it. Never ever buy it with out renting it first, even though it's not really worth renting...

Rating:
Summary: Worth watching a few times
Review: With the recent rash of zombie movies popping up recently, it seems only fitting that someone come up with a zombie spoof. And Shaun of the Dead hits the bullseye. The situations that the characters find themselves in are very real-world. You'll find yourself saying "That looks like something stupid I would have done". Being trapped inside a car with a zombie because the locks are child-proof is a great scenario. You and your friends will be talking about the different scenes for weeks. If the emotional parts were cut out and the movie were a little more "spoofier" I would give it 5 stars. But regardless, this is a great movie. I can't wait to watch it again.