Shaun of the Dead

This last weekend, I was going to go see either "Cellular" or "Resident Evil: Apocolypse", but at the last minute, I invited Adam. It turns out he was already planning to go see "Shaun of the Dead" with Bob, so I went with them instead. Although it cost me some measure of my alpha male status to bend to their will this way, I had a great time. What a good movie!

It helped that my expectations were low. C'mon, it was a zombie movie and there's been plenty of those. This one, though, was really well done. Shaun is kind of loser who hangs out with his slovenly friend, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's friends at a local pub at night and works in a consumer appliance store during the day. It takes him quite some time to even wake up from his humdrum life to realize that there are man-eating zombies all around him.

The movie had some clear inspiration from the Evil Dead series with the rapid-fire close-up sequences that show a relatively mundane series of actions on the part of the character in a striking way without taking up precious minutes of movie time. Also, Shaun's only at-work scene starts with him telling all his co-workers that, "Ash is out today, so I'm in charge." For those that don't know, "Ash" is the name of Bruce Campbell's lead character in the Evil Dead series and in those movies, Ash works in an S-Mart (think K-Mart). "Shop smart, shop S-Mart!"

These references don't detract from the movie at all, but rather add to it. This is one I would go see again, even in the theater, just because it was so much fun. If you like campy, comedic horror, go see it. If you go see it in the Seattle area, let me know and I'll join you.