Shaun of the Dead
Written by John Rozewicki   
Thursday, 07 September 2006

Didn't Like It

I admit, before my third viewing, I did not like Shaun of the Dead. I was disappointed by it the first time I saw it. I was expecting this really hysterical parody of zombie cinema, and it felt like it was refusing to deliver the main attraction, zombies, for a significant portion of the movie. I couldn't get past the feeling I had about the beginning of the movie well enough to give it my seal of approval as a Grade A good movie that deserves a spot in my library. I had my head up my arse, and so I feel I must apologize to this film before I do anything else. I'm sorry Shaun of the Dead, will you still be my friend?

It's Crafty

Shaun of the Dead has a quality to it that is present in every one of my favorite films. When you are watching it, every single frame of film and sample of audio feels like it has been specially crafted. It doesn't feel as if any moment was accidental or without purpose. It feels concrete, specific, and especially planned to evoke an also planned reaction. It's a movie you feel safe with like a big quilt you could wrap around yourself. It's not random. It surprises you, but also comforts you afterward. It breathes when it's supposed to breathe, and gives you a sense of closure upon its conclusion. Other movies feel sloppy like the people in charge of the creation process had a kind of utilitarian attitude. A lot of the Vince Vaughn/Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson troupe movies feel this way. I get the sense they're created on shoe-string budgets by people who don't care so much about how well the pieces of the project come together as long as they assemble into something resembling a whole. The scripts, to me, feel vacant of wit, subtlety, plot, etc. The only acting achievement present is how they found so many people who are able to act while winking at the camera and planting their tongue in their cheek without it being too obvious.

A Fork in the Approach

It could just be a difference in the approaches they took to making comedy. On the one hand you have these movies where it feels, like I said, as if the people onscreen are winking at you the whole time. Then you have Shaun of the Dead and the Wes Anderson stuff where it feels like the characters exist and do take the situations very seriously. Laughing with people is easy. They prompt you to laugh through their own laughter. Laughing at sincere people seems to be a tougher task for most people. They don't know when to laugh or feel bad for laughing at parts that might not have been intended to be laughed at. I find all the laugh tracks and tongue-in-cheekness distracting. It pulls me out of the movie, and I find myself not paying attention to the comedy because I'm too busy paying attention to things about the movie I don't like.

My Head Up My Arse

I didn't like Shaun of the Dead at first because it felt sloppy. But after the first viewing I knew what to expect. I knew that the movie was going to deliver. I could sit back and enjoy the thought that went in to the movie. Shaun of the Dead rewards viewers who watch closely and notice things. There's obvious foreshadowing and preloading of jokes, but they cover it with more immediate jokes and plot development. It also helps that the movie is impressively edited. The opening scene literally unfolds the characters in front of you with the way the camera hinges on Shaun and reveals more of the surrounding characters as they get brought into the conversation. The scene where Shaun quite literally falls to sleep in a chair in his kitchen is exhilarating to watch. Shaun falls down, and it appears as if a gigantic spotlight turns on in the window in the background the moment he hits the chair. That is, until you realize that that gigantic spotlight is the sun, and what you have just witnessed is a masterful way to jump ahead in the plot without fading to black and then back in with Shaun waking up. And these examples are only 2 such moments in the movie. There's numerous other smaller examples that I could list here, but I think at that point I would consider this article as having stalled.

Casting

The cast is an endlessly compelling group of nice actors from across the pond. It is a very nice mixture of people who are obviously lead-types with people who are flavorful character actors. It seems as if all the actors sort of knew their place. The main cast feels confident as fleshed out characters while the supporting cast feels confident just being background color. I've loved watching Dylan Moran since I first saw him a few years ago on Black Books, and it was cool to see Tamsin Greig make a cameo as one of the people who make up the bizarro troupe of post-apocalyptic warriors whose styles accurately mirror those of the main characters. Bill Nighy, as usual, does a stand up job playing the undead.

Suffice to Say

Shaun of the Dead is a great, sincere, movie. It doesn't feel like it was crafted by a huge studio to sell tickets. The people who you see in the movie had lots of creative input to the extent that Shaun, Simon Pegg, is listed as co-writer of the screenplay. Pick it up. Watch it. See it. Show your friends. Appreciate.
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