Monday, October 21, 2024

2K Replay: SHAUN OF THE DEAD

 by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Best Comedy Film” at the British Comedy Awards. It lost to School of Rock.

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): Honestly, it could be any of 100 different moments which makes this category difficult. The one that made me laugh the most on this revisit was the visual joke revealing that Ed (Nick Frost) crashed Pete’s car (Peter Serafinowicz) on purpose to trade up and drive Philip’s (Bill Nighy) Jaguar. I also really like the final moments between Bill Nighy and Simon Pegg before Nighy turns in a zombie.

• Best Song: “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen.
• Best Merch: A “Shaun of the Dead Screen Used Movie Prop W/COA” for $250.00. Although this looks like a piece of wood from the youth shelter in Freddy’s Dead, it’s not. It’s an original piece of zombie skin used during the filming of Shaun of the Dead. And it comes in a cool frame! With a certificate of authenticity written in German!

• Director Grade: Shaun of the Dead was directed by Edgar Wright.
Great Movies: Shaun of the Dead
Good Movies: Hot Fuzz, The World’s End, Baby Driver, Last Night in Soho
OK Movies: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Bad Movies: A Fistful of Fingers, The Sparks Brothers
Unseen By Me: N/A
Overall Grade: B+

• Double It with This 2004 Movie: Broken Lizard’s Club Dread

• Year 2004 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Dawn of the Dead (2004), The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Seed of Chucky

Color of Night or Shaun of the Dead? Shaun of the Dead
• Mall Movie? I’m leaning towards yes. British + StudioCanal would ordinarily mean fancy theater in town but zombies + Rogue Pictures (who distributed the movie in the US) are mall movie signifiers.

• Only in 2004: Being convinced by a movie that the Batman (1989) soundtrack isn’t good. They’re wrong, it is good.

• Scene Stealer (tie): Nick Frost and Bill Nighy.

• I Miss: Simon Pegg-Nick Frost-Edgar Wright collaborations.

• I Don’t Miss: The onslaught of zombie movies and television shows during the 2000s and 2010s. There were many good examples, but the trend became tired and needed a break.

• 2004 Crush: Lucy Davis.

• 2024 Crush: Jessica Hynes.
• What I Thought in 2004: I loved it. I thought Shaun of the Dead was really funny. I was watching a lot of the British The Office at the time so I was very much in the mindset of dry, witty, British humor. The movie was even better because it came with a sense of discovery since this was my first time seeing an Edgar Wright movie or anything starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (who are both tremendous here).

• What I Think in 2024: I think Shaun of the Dead is a perfect movie and could be considered a classic now that it's been 20 years since its release. This is the rare case where you think a movie will be just a spoof but instead is a perfect, sincere example of the genre in which it’s affectionately lampooning. This is an essential entry in the zombie film subgenre and not just lazy meta-text. That’s hard to do and very impressive.

3 comments:

  1. I was just thinking this weekend how it would be awesome for the three of them to make a British gangster movie where Simon is the hero and Nick is the villain, kinda just so I could see the promotion:
    PEGG vs. FROST!!!!

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  2. I saw this a few weeks ago in a real theater for its 20th anniversary-- Boy Howdy! Does it still play to a real audience (not zombies).

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  3. This is a movie that I once thought was overhyped and now think is impossible to overhype. So much fun, so much heart, amazing soundtrack--I can put it on anytime and it brings me joy.

    Great write up of a great movie!

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