It's that same old clich??d story, guy has girl, guy loses girl, guy's country gets overrun by flesh eating zombies intent on destroying all humanity, guy uses massive zombie attack as catalyst to rekindle romance with girl, joint happiness ensues.
Oh wait, that isn't clich??. In fact, that is \Shaun of the Dead,"" a hilarious import from Britain. The movie is advertised as ""A romantic comedy. With zombies."" It is able to successfully meld both genres into a surprisingly fresh package that should be seen by all.
In the end, the low-key approach to the zombies actually makes the movie even better. Shaun doesn't even encounter a zombie until 20 minutes into the movie. This time spent at the start allows the audience to really get to know Shaun and the people who occupy his world.
The characters in Shaun's world are entertaining because of their laid back approach to life. Shaun and his best friend Ed never really let much get to them, they're content just sliding through life, playing videogames, drinking and getting high occasionally. When a hoard of zombies finally do start attacking Britain, their view on life doesn't magically change, they stay the same, with hilarious results.
What really works well in ""Shaun of the Dead,"" is the acting. While the stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are not that well-known on this side of the ocean, they have a loyal cult following in Britain because of their Britcom ""Spaced."" Their comedic background in the field of British dry humor works really well in ""Shaun."" Their timing is spot on perfect, and they've been working together for five years, so their chemistry together is fantastic.
They work perfectly in the comedic parts of the film, however in a later part of the film things take a dramatic turn. Unfortunately, Pegg and Frost haven't had much training in serious acting because the dramatic scenes drag on quite a bit. Fortunately ""Shaun of the Dead"" is a comedy, so the dramatic bits are dropped after a short while, and the comedy once returns, the acting again picks up and everything goes great.
Another alum from ""Spaced"" is director Edgar Wright. His years with ""Spaced,"" allowed him to inject ""Shaun"" with a zany nature that really kept the action moving. Under his competent direction, multiple jokes were able to be sold very well at the same time. In one particularly good scene Shaun and his girlfriend battle an elderly zombie in a fight choreographed to Queen's ""Don't Stop Me Now.""
However, at some points it becomes obvious that Wright is trying to expand beyond his sitcom roots, and he fails at it. Wright tried injecting some quick cuts reminiscent of ""Requiem for a Dream"" into ""Shaun,"" just because he could. Those cuts worked in ""Requiem"" in order to help convey what the characters were going through, they don not work in ""Shaun, because they serve no purpose. They exist just to fulfill a coolness factor that isn't there and doesn't need to be there
All in all, ""Shaun of the Dead"" is a really good movie. It could have been bland, it could have been a standard horror spoof that has been done to death. However, its marriage of romantic comedy to zombie parody, along with some really fun characters and a unique take on events really elevates ""Shaun"" over not just horror spoofs, but also many other comedies in general.
