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When his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) dumps him because he has too little
ambition to do anything but hang out in his favourite pub The Winchester
with his best pal Ed (Nick Frost), Shaun (Simon Pegg) knows it's not one of his
better days - what he doesn't know though is that the dead have chosen exactly
this day to rise from their tombs & feed on the living ... & it takes
him & Ed quite some time (until the middle of the next day) to find that
out too since after another drunk night at the pub a serious hangover prevents
them from immediately getting the whole picture.
But Shaun also sees an opportunity in the new situation: Firstly, he can get
ruid of his hated stepfather Philip (Bill Nighy), who has been bitten by a
zombie (& will thus become one himself) & now needs killing, secondly
he can save his mum (Penelope Wilton) & this way reconcile with her after
having forgotten mother's day, he can save Liz & this way reconcile with
her too, & then they can all go to the pub until the thing blows over ...
or so he thinks.
When he arrives at his mother's house withj Ed though, he has to realize
it's not quite that sim,ple to off a still living human being, wo they take
Philip with them (despite his state), when he arrives at Liz' place, she seems
in no hurry of getting saved & when he finally persuades her, her 2 best
mates Dianne (July Davis) & David (Dylan Moran) - who is secretly in love
with Liz - decide to come as well - which means their escape car gets pretty
crowded. & when Philip finally does turn into an undead, the car even
crashes & Shaun, Ed, Shaun's mum, Liz, Dianne & David have to make
their further escape on foot ... only to find out the Winchester is sieged by
zombies.
In a heroic attempt, Shaun can distract hte zombies in order to get the
others into the pub, & even shake the undead off when he acts as bait ...
or so he thinks.
Soon the pub is under siege again, but this time with our heroes inside it,
& despite the fact that they have a gun now noone knows how to shoot.
Several relationship crises break out all at once too, to be topped off by the
fact that Shaun's mum confesses to him she has been bitten by a zombie as well.
All seems lost when Shaun has to shoot his own mum, the zombies find a way
to enter the pub, David is graphically torn apart by the zombies, Dianne
disappears in the undead mob in a futile attempt to save him, Ed is bitten by
the zombies, & when Shaun & Liz escape, they find out their escape
route only lead them out of the fire into the frying pan ... until Shaun's ex
Yvonne (Jessica Stevenson - Simon Pegg's partner in Spaced,
also directed by Edgar Wright) comes along with a bunch of soldieers who
conveniently kill off all the zombies ...
6 months later: the zombie-invasion (or Z-day) has become another
media-memory, the zombies who are still undead are nowadays used for menial
work or as novelty gadgets in tv-shows, & Shaun & Liz have become a
happy couple again. But in his garden shed, Shaun still keeps his best buddy Ed
(now a full fledged zombie) chained up for company ...
Peter Serafinowicz gives a good performance as Shaun's & Ed's you-just-love-to-hate-him
flatmate.
With the re-emergance of the zombie genre over the last few years (see 28
Days Later or Resident Evil for example),
a film like Shaun of the Dead was (fortunately) inevitable:
A blend of (mostly Italian) zombie-film clichés with dry British humour,
which is not at all unfunny, since Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright do know their
source material (as they have previously proven in Spaced)
& know how to lovingly make fun of it. However, the inclusion of some more
serious scene (e.g. Shaun having to reevaluate the relationship to his stepdad
& having to shoot his own mum) does not necessarily help the film, as it
takes the story into an opposite direction all too promptly, a direction that
is abandoned again all too promptly only a little while later. Still, the movie does
contain some very funny scenes for all who love - or hate - the zombie-genre.
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