Welcome to the latest hybrid strand of mutant pop culture: a romantic British horror comedy. Britcom star Simon Pegg (of the cult TV series "Spaced") wrote and acts in the romp about a North London slacker who is about to be left by his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) because he's wasting too much time with his loser roomate Ed (Nick Frost.) All they think about is playing video games or getting snookered at the local--until the zombies attack, and Shaun is forced to get his life together.
With a game cast, solid production values and a meticulous script, "Shaun of the Dead" is entertaining enough, and the gore is a admirably disgusting (there's a disembowlement scene that can only be described as gutsy.) But the film is not nearly as fresh as director Edgar Wright makes it out to be. "Zombie movies take themselves very seriously," the press kit remarks, "and we wanted to change that."
Pardon me, but of course zombie movies are funny, and always have been. George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" is both scarier and funnier than "Shaun," and the humor had more satiric bite. Or take Peter Jackson's early gorefests—"Bad Taste" is about as funny as it gets, and instead of carefully separating the laughs from the mayhem, Jackson made the blood funny. Now, that was an accomplishment.
