Nicholas Thurkettle

Originally posted 9/27/04

Shaun of the Dead
Director: Edgar Wright
Writers: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright
Producer: Nira Park
Stars: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy

The Scream movies were labeled “post-modern” because the characters in them had seen horror movies and used them as a template for survival. Shaun of the Dead is a different kind of post-modern, because its success depends heavily on the audience having seen horror movies, particularly zombie movies. The characters have not seen zombie movies, and know nothing about survival except how much their preferred post-hangover victuals cost at the corner market.

This almost appallingly-amusing movie’s central joke is that there’s no thing too weird, say, for example, an apocalypse of the walking dead, that we as people couldn’t eventually filter into a background irritant. The inertia of the average low-watt slacker, we see, will always bring him back to his couch, television and beer.
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