Shaun of the Dead

[PsychicWarVeteran]

Shaun of the Dead...

Just saw this last night. Loved it. Never before has a movie with so much gratuitous gore made me laugh so hard.

Anybody else like it? Hate it?

[devilchicken]

I enjoyed it - it was good nod to the old Romero movies, whilst acknowledging the ridiculousness of zombie movies in general. Romero's zombie movies were never really scary - they contained more social commentary rather than horror.

One of my mates back in the UK had a bit part (blink and you miss it) in Shaun of the Dead. He's in TV production - so he knows the right people.

Apparently Simon Pegg and a few other cast members are going to be in the new zombie flick George Romero has started production on - Land of the Dead. Its out next year I think.

[ElricJColvill]

Shaun

I loved this movie, and it was bloody hard to get it out here in my area of the states. It was only after a great deal of email writing and the like that it was released out here in Iowa. Originally it was only playing in New York, Texas, Illinois (Chicago only, really) and maybe a few other sites. But we got it in Des Moines at our huge new honking mall, which is just a bit smaller than the one in Minneaplois, and the lads and I all took a road trip to see it, and we weren't disappointed. One of the funniest movies I have seen in recent years, a definite DVD buy, and I buy very few movies.

It gets **** out of ***** stars by my reckoning.

[DeeCrowSeer]

I quite enjoyed it, but not as much as I thought I would. I was a huge fan of Spaced (the series that arguably spawned the film), but felt that the film was inferior to Pegg and Wright's previous work... perhaps because of Jessica Stevenson's absence from the creative process. One of my favourite aspects of Spaced was how they managed to keep a healthy balance between the geeky "boys with toys" humour and the more endearingly off-the-wall humour of Daisy's rambling, and the more effeminate Brian. I also felt that they pushed their luck a little too far (in terms of having their cake and eating it) in the final scenes, where we go from supposedly heart-wrenching emotion to the slapstick comedy of the zombies' undignified fate... I thought the scene in the shed was especially unnecessary.

My main complaint though, as an admirer of Romero's zombie films, would be that the appeal to me of the genre was that a disparate group of strangers would be thrown together and forced to fight side by side, and overcome their class/gender/racial issues. I know I'm getting a bit heavy, but I think that makes for much more interesting dramatic conflict than seeing a bunch of middle-class white people bickering in a pub. I won't labour the issue though...

They also used the "next time I see you, you'll be dead" joke twice, even though it was painfully predictable the first time!

Still, I know that they like to please their fans, so the DVD will certainly be worth buying if you enjoyed the film. Those chaps don't skimp on the extras!

Sorry, I've only seen it the once and I went in with silly expectations. If I saw it again I might thoroughly enjoy it... although I doubt I'll ever warm to Nick Frost's character. :(