 Shaun of the Dead - 09/17/04
Directed by: Edgar WrightWritten by: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg Starring: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Nicola Cunningham Horror fans rejoice! The last few years have given us an incredible amount of high quality films... Session 9, House of 1000 Corpses, Below, 28 Days Later..., Cabin Fever, Dawn of the Dead (2004)... great, great stuff. We've been getting horror from all over the globe. Peter Jackson gave us Bad Taste and Dead Alive. We've gotten a ton of Japanese and HK horror, including Ju-On, Battle Royale, The Eye, Versus, Ringu... The French are getting back into genre films, as well (though I haven't seen any French horror films, except for some of their love stories...) and the British, again, have sent a barage of excellent material to the states. The first time, you know, was with rock and roll. Has anyone seen The Office? One the funniest television series I've watched in a long time. British humor does well here... not always understood, but has a distinct following. Monty Python is an attribute to that, along with Faulty Towers and other 70's and 80's shows that came on after Masterpiece Theater at 2 in the morning. Lately, we've been innundated with Americanized reality television from British shows like Big Brother. We got the tame Americanized version of the popular British show Coupling... that didn't do well. British directors aren't few and far between, though aren't as plentiful and celebrated as American directors... but we get some quality work from them in America. The insurgence of horror, especially low budget horror, has sparked a serious amount of imagination all over the world. With DV being supported more and more, internet films are becoming hugely popular (I'm not telling you anything you don't already know), and making it possible for people with their own cameras to become directors. Just last week, I saw the most incredible trailer for Grayson, an original story based on the death of Batman, and Dick Grayson coming out of retirement to find his killer. Simply incredible. I have to thank JoBlo for not only bringing the movie to my attention, but also letting me know of the sneak preview that I saw this past Friday night. Shaun has been around for quite some time... and has made its presence known mostly over the internet. There have been Region 0's of the DVD floating on Ebay, since the movie debuted back in April, 2004 in the UK. Thankfully, Rogue Pictures distributed it in the US... where, after sitting in a sold out audience with people dressed as zombies... it will be received well. This was the third best movie experience I've ever had... the first going to Independence Day and the second going to The Day After Tomorrow (both not incredible films, but hugely fun to watch on opening night)... the audience was having a ton of fun with this film. They knew what they were seeing, they were all fans of the genre (and comedy)... we all had a good time.
The zombie genre (it really does deserve it's own genre) has given us great directors, make-up artists, even actors. Most of them turn into cult favorites... but there are very few zombie comedies. The only one I can think of is Return of the Living Dead... which sparked two sequels (along with their being the possiblities of parts 4 and 5 in the works), both of which weren't comedies at all. Shaun finds a perfect niche in the market. It's cleverly written, directed, acted... I was very impressed with the entire film. I was shocked to find so much emotion and sadness, along with such comedy... but it all blended so well. My hat is definitely off to both Wright and Pegg, whose long time collaboration paved the way for an enteraining film, and what looked like to be a blast throughout the entire production. Nick Frost, having worked with these two, has the most memorable character in the entire film. The zombie extras were all fans of Spaced, contacted through the shows website. We were also graced with a number of cameos... some inside jokers from the show, along with British musicians, newscast personalities and more. After having seen The Office, I was pleased to see both Lucy Davis and Martin Freeman (who is set to play Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a perfect casting choice if there ever was one) in the film. DP David M. Dunlap has had a HUGE career since 1974... mainly working as a camera operator and Second Unit DP... but lately, he's been given the job of cinematographer. His first cinematography gig was on Julie Johnson, starring Lili Taylor in 2001. Shaun is one of his latest, along with The Calcium Kid, a mockumentary starring Orlando Bloom... should be interesting. I'm sure we can expect some great things from Dunlap in the future... if he continues to be the driving force behind the camera. Brian Best has done some incredible make-up work over the past few years, and is now on the exciting project of creating Batman's suit for the new film, Batman Begins. He's done some incredible prop work over the last ten years, including The Mummy Returns, Blade II and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Stuart Conran started his career with Hellraiser, in 1981. He would go on to do the make-up for the sequel, along with Braindead (Dead Alive), Saving Private Ryan and From Hell. And Dan Frye has been working in the special effects industry since Class of Nuke 'Em High, in 1986. Ghostbusters II, Shocker, Terminator 2, Resident Evil, Reign of Fire and LXG... These three men (and their teams) did some incredible work with this films make-up effects. They were remeniscent of Tom Savini's work in Dawn of the Dead, in my mind... and you can see how guys like George Romero, with this huge uprising of horror films, has been inspired to start pre-production on yet another chapter in the Dead Saga... This kind of production is how most films should be made. Fans of the creators, friends, stars who want to have fun with film... you can see it all on the screen, and it makes for a much more entertaining experience for the moviegoer, who knows that the creators aren't just interested in the money. I would recommend this film to just about anyone. It's got a lot of everything, but it mostly has a lot of heart, in all the right places. I expect great things from Wright, Pegg and the entire cast.
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This film is chocked full of inside jokes and references to British comedy television... mostly Spaced, which starred Pegg and Frost and was written and directed by
Wright and Pegg. There were also a large number of references to other zombie films, including Night of the Living Dead,