Shaun of the Dead (2004)
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Shaun of the Dead Movie Review
Shaun of the Dead is a 2004 horror comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It’s a solid and fun, but quite a bit overrated movie nonetheless.
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“Okay. But dogs can look up!“
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Let’s first talk about the story. It isn’t all that great and is rather simplistic, but it works for a zombie flick which are usually much less enjoyable than this movie. Again, it’s nothing great, but at least the movie is constantly entertaining and particularly strong at the character interactions.
Yes, by far the standouts of this flick are the characters. Shaun and Ed are a terrific duo, and I loved their friendship, and their amusing dialogue exchange. Simon Pegg is terrific and very strong acting-wise whereas Nick Frost is the source of the majority of the film’s humor. All the other characters fade in comparison to these two.
The movie doesn’t really succeed as a horror flick because those aspects are subdued quite a bit in favor of the comedy. Yes, some scenes are gruesome and horrible, but more done for the shock value than to truly scare audiences. I wanted much more from that aspect as the flick is pretty much another zombie horror picture with nothing new to offer in terms of the thrills.
As for the comedy elements, they mostly worked. The film is, particularly in its first half, very amusing with clever, fun banter and successful parodying of the zombie subgenre conventions. Some of the conversations were highly memorable and so smart.
But, the main problem here is that the second half really forgot about the humor as the film became much less funny, interesting of memorable in any way with the zombie action which was okay, but certainly far from great. It just lost its momentum which was unfortunate.
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Shaun of the Dead is well made with solid action and particularly terrific dialogue which is the standout of the entire picture. I also found the direction for the first half great, but Edgar Wright later on did not know what to do with the film as it became a bit directionless.
Shaun of the Dead is terrific in its first half in particular with fun, clever banter and amusing character interactions, but later on it lost its momentum and became rather forgettable with the standard zombie action. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are terrific and the dialogue is the standout aspect here, but in terms of the horror elements and the overall story, the flick is rather lacking.
