Film reviews

Shaun of the Dead, Dir; Edgar Wright, Cert; 15

From it’s opening scenes, over dubbed by The Specials track “Ghost Town”, through to the closing titles, accompanied by Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend”, this film very firmly has it’s tongue placed in it’s putrefying un-dead cheek!

Simon Pegg, previously of TV's Spaced, plays the titular Shaun, bit of a dead beat muddling his way through life unaware of happenings around him, content simply to spend time in the local with his girlfriend or playing computer games with his sidekick best mate who is even more of a loafer, who only pauses his game console to make the odd minor drug deal or answer his mobile phone.

Thus our intrepid anti-hero’s find themselves in a world suffering a cataclysmic disease, turning the living into walking corpses and the recently dead into the newly un-dead. Needless to say anarchic comedy ensues as they try to rescue their - or that should be “Shaun’s” - nearest and dearest whilst avoiding the attentions of the mobile flesh chompers.

Throughout the film there are knowing references to such classic doomsday films as “The Andromeda Strain”, “The Omega Man” and obviously “Dawn of The Dead” along with comic horrors like “Dog Soldiers” and “Evil Dead 2”. More telling though is the satirical under commentary on modern day life - from students wandering around in a daze at the start, to the mind-numbing nature of daytime television at the end, via jobs in the service industry and peoples slavery to the mobile phone to the detriment of their social interactions with others.

In conclusion this film works on many different levels and in many different ways that will appeal to different groups. There’s comedy, there are surprises, there’s chills and pathos in equal measure.

If you have to see a film about dead people coming back to life - see this one. If you have to see two such films see this and the remake of its inspiration “Dawn Of The Dead” - but on know account see the third one!! 8/10

For an alternative review of this film, click here

K Soze

Odeon Online