Year: 2004
Directed By: Edgar Wright
Written By: Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
RYAN’S REVIEW
When it’s time to pull your life together you gotta make a decision, and you can’t let some little thing like the zombie apocalypse get in the way. Shaun is a man who picks the wrong time to get it together but that doesn’t stop him from doing so in this delightfully funny movie that pays homage to the true zombie films.
This movie came out the same year as the Dawn of the Dead remake, which did nothing but sully the original, and it was perfect timing for a movie like this. The sprinting zombies became all the rage back in 2004 but this movie held true to how the creatures were originally created. When asked why they didn’t use running zombies Simon Pegg said it best when he replied “because death isn’t an energy drink.” He couldn’t have been more right. While running zombies are scary enough to make you jump out of your seat they don’t factor in to good movies.
Personally I think the whole idea is stupid because zombies on speed equal nothing but the end of the human race. There is no survival when zombies are coming at you with 40 times that would get them drafted in the top 10 of the NFL draft. Zombies are much scarier as a manageable threat because the real scary stuff is the collapse of society and the dog eat dog world that rises afterwards. Thinking people are much more dangerous and unpredictable than a horde of dead runners. The runners are just going to kill everything, but the walkers are going to leave you with hope. Without hope Shaun would have never been able to make things right with his girlfriend, mother, and life.
I have personally watched this movie at least 25 times and I can honestly say it still makes me laugh and it gets better with each viewing. Even watching it now I see things I have never noticed before and they only make me laugh more. Even now I’m recognizing for the first time the line lifted from the original Night of the Living Dead, “We’re coming to get your Barbara!!!” I don’t know how I ever managed to miss that but it just goes to show how this movie has layers that make it continuously entertaining.
I love the pairing of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I would literally watch anything the two of them do together and have enjoyed all that I have seen of them. Hot Fuzz, Paul, and The World’s End were all fantastic movies but they can’t beat this one. In this movie their relationship is actually based on their own relationship as roommates before they hit it big. Any time the two of these guys get together you can expect me to be tuning in. They don’t currently have anything lined up according to IMDB but in time I hope to see these friends back on screen together. There was at one time talk of a sequel to this film in which they would do something similar only with a different monster. The working title was “From Dusk till Shaun'” and I for one think that sounds like it would have been pretty funny.
I mentioned already that I have seen this movie an egregious amount of times but I know without doubt it won’t end there. As long as this one makes me laugh I’ll be enjoying it now and again. Given how much I enjoyed it when I sat down to it this time I have every reason to think I can watch it another 25 times and still enjoy it. That’s a special type of movie and one that is easily worth your time to see. There are tons of backstory and inside jokes within this movie that I couldn’t possibly list or even go into. I just love the movie and I think anybody else would love it just as much.
NEXT MOVIE: The Shining (1980)