Review #164: Shaun of the Dead (2004)


This review was originally written in 2021, and reposted as part of the Bucket List Challenge in 2022. There may or may not be small differences between the two reviews.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #19: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

I watched and reviewed this movie last year, so most of my thoughts are going to be the same. If you read that review, you can skip this one.

So obviously, this movie was a delight. I had definitely seen it before, but it was a long time ago- it's especially odd because I love horror and I've seen the other two Cornetto movies a million times, so why hadn't I ever revisited this one? I don't know, your guess is as good as mine. But now that I've watched Night, Dawn, Day, Land, Diary, Survival, Army, and Return 1-3, I have way more context for these types of movies than I did back in 2004. And this movie totally still holds up!

I do think it's worthwhile to mention that this is (arguably) a romantic comedy and not a horror movie, as the main driving force of the film is Shaun's relationships with his girlfriend, his mother, and his roommate. The zombie stuff is a big part of it too, but it's a solid thirty minutes before the protagonists directly encounter a zombie, so if it is just a zombie movie, it's a fairly slow one. Also, the zombie part of the story isn't exactly breaking any new ground- even in 2004 it was pretty standard zombie fare, but that's perfectly fine, because as I said, I feel the movie's focus is the relationships and not the zombie apocalypse. I can also say that, this time around, I totally appreciate how the joke at the end of the film is that they're going to be putting the zombies to work in menial jobs! I feel like that's 100% in line with what we've seen in the various Romero films thus far, so while it was surely meant as a joke, it's not far off from how previous movies have treated them.

I also wanted to stress that this movie (as well as Hot Fuzz and World's End, two equally amazing movies) is a master class in setups and payoffs. These movies CONSTANTLY drop in little details that seem like nothing at the moment, but get called back later on to pay off a great joke, either subtle or not-so-subtle. It's been said to death of course, but the fact that Ed basically spells out how the entire rest of the movie is going to go very early on (“We’ll have a Bloody Mary first thing, have a bite at the King’s Head, couple at the Little Princess, stagger back here. Bang! Back at the bar for shots") is just a fantastic bit of writing, and there's a dozen other examples of similar parallels that happen throughout the film. This movie is so intelligently-written, clearly made with enthusiasm and passion, and is bound to please anyone that watches it.

Overall Rating: 9/10 Pints at the Winchester

Goofy Memory: My wife Lisa always used to say that Dylan Morin's character looked like me, and I have to say, I totally see it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review #153: The Endless (2018)

Image
This review was originally written in 2022. Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #8 - The Endless (2018) A disclaimer: Most of this review is going to be me complaining about the logistics and mechanics of this movie, and it's going to be full of spoilers. I'll try to summarize my non-mechanical thoughts as concisely as possible. The Endless is an interesting film created by writing/directing duo Benson and Moorhead. Apart from Spring (which to my knowledge doesn't fit into this film's universe, though I could be mistaken) this was the first Benson & Moorhead joint I'd seen, and I was instantly intrigued by the premise: two brothers escaped a cult ten years ago, and after hearing that the cult was seemingly getting ready to kill themselves, they go back for one last visit to get some closure. When they get there, they realize that the cult's supernatural beliefs seem to be true, and they get caught up in a strange web of timey-wimeyness under the u...
Read more

Review #259: Strangeland (1998)

Image
This review was originally written in October 2023. Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #13 - Strangeland (1998) Strangeland follows a detective, Mike, whose daughter gets abducted, raped, and tortured by CaptHowdy (played by Snider), a local sadist with an obsession for body modification (tribal tattoos, extensive piercings, and even self-torture used to achieve enlightenment) who uses 90s chat rooms to find and lure victims. After getting a lead when someone discovers and recognizes CaptHowdy's septum jewelry at a crime scene, we're treated to the most absurd cat-and-mouse game I've ever seen between Mike and the kidnapper: Mike finds CaptHowdy in a chat room while posing as his niece, and CaptHowdy looks at Mike's fake profile. Mike changes his profile to include one of CaptHowdy's interests, and CaptHowdy immediately notices the change and somehow automatically recognizes it as an indicator that Mike is actually a cop conducting a sting operation. When the st...
Read more

Review #268: Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

Image
This review was originally written in October 2023. Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #22 - Thir13en Ghosts (2001) Thirthirteenen Ghosts is a film about Arthur, a down-on-his luck widower, who finds out that his weird uncle Cyrus has died and left his state-of-the-art mansion to him and his children (and his live-in nanny I guess). But when they move in, it turns out that the house isn't just a house- it's an infernal machine with twelve ghosts trapped inside with a mechanism that's going to open a portal to hell or something, and the only way to stop it is for Arthur to sacrifice himself (and become the thirteenth ghost). But there may be more at play than just a dead uncle's plot... First things first, while I think there's a lot that's really cool about this movie, I do need to say right at the top that it's a bad movie. The writing has its moments but is ultimately a bunch of nonsense, the acting is over-the-top from every single person on screen, t...
Read more