MasterChugs Theater: "Shaun of the Dead"

There’s some weird component in us all that makes us wonder how we would deal with the apocalypse. Would we be people of action, stepping up in the moment when we are most needed, or would we be cowering simps, hiding until the worst of it is over? The titular hero of Shaun of the Dead prefers to gather some friends (or acquaintinces) and head over to the pub for a drink in the midst of a gigantic zombie rampage, hoping for said rampage to be over by the time that they're sufficiently smashed to deal with it. Genius!

Shaun, played skillfully by Simon Pegg, is a 29-year-old English slacker whose girlfriend has just dumped him and whose best friend has been mooching on his couch for the last five years. Suddenly he finds himself in the midst of an outbreak of zombie madness, and as they sometimes say, “hilarity ensues.” Now, the description could just end there, and most people would assume it's the Airplane! equivalent of a zombie-which it's not. Shaun of the Dead is the forebearer of an entirely new genre-the zomromcom. It's, essentially, a romantic comedy that just happens to have zombies in it. And lots of them.

The difference between most people in a zombie apocalypse and Shaun? Rather than stay hole up in his flat—Shaun fears for the safety of his sweet, very British mother and his ex-girlfriend—he grabs his cricket bat and sets out to rescue his loved ones, all the while warding off zombies. Even his smug stepfather must be saved, as much as Shaun wants to leave the guy (particularly since he's been bitten).

It’s evident, quite early, on that the filmmakers have nothing but respect for the zombie film, especially the seminal and genre-defining works of George Romero (how many filmmakers, by the way, can be credited with actually inventing a brand new kind of movie monster with the staying power that Romero’s undead have?). There’s music from the original Dawn of the Dead playing over the opening company credits, and homages – not parodies – to the films are peppered liberally throughout. When Shaun's best friend Ed (played by Nick Frost) shouts into the phone, “We’re coming to get you, Barbara! (Shaun's mother)” it’s purely a moment for the people who love their horror movies (and FYI, that's a purely classic line from the original Night of the Living Dead). And the zombies are never played as anything other than a source of menace; at least no less than Romero himself does (by Dawn, he had realized that the slow and shambling corpses were not much of a threat as single enemies, but it’s the way that the heroes can let their guard around them, and have the zombies assimilate into the environment, that helps lend the undead their resonant metaphoric power). The comedy comes from the people and the situations, not from the zombies acting silly.

Hype is a monster, plain and simple. It steals the excitement of discovery, it clearcuts reality so that the movie can’t reach your expectations. I ended up hyping this movie to near ridiculous proportion when it first came out in theaters. Luckily, I also found myself loving it. I found that I couldn’t believe that I was seeing a true labor of love, a movie with production values and sharp writing and fine performances, a film that seemed to have shambled out of the grave, aimed right at everything I love. You may see films that are technically better, films that are finer achievements in the art of cinema, but you often won't see a film with more heart than this one. I give this one three braaaaaaaaains and four more paramedics to be sent (name that reference for official cool points).