MOVIES: Shaun of the Dead

Shaun of the Dead is brilliant, the kind of idea I could kick myself for not having first -- but, I have to admit, realized far better than I ever could have. (On the other hand, I think Dorian -- who was one of the people I saw the movie with -- and I, as we joked on being subjected to the horrible, horrible preview for Hilary Duff's Raise Your Voice, really could write a generic teen movie far better than the actual teen movies that get made, and make a mint.)

Shaun is a zombie comedy, and amazingly, it succeeds at both genres. (It's also supposed to be a romance, I guess -- the creators have referred to it as a "rom zom com" -- but while it doesn't utterly fail at that part, it doesn't really contribute to its success.) It's truly hilarious, one of the funniest movies I've seen this year. I laughed out loud often, from the small details -- Shaun being completely oblivious to the bloody handprints all over his local market -- to the grandly hysterical --- the simultaneous pool-cue beating of a zombie, synchronized to a Queen song on the jukebox. Or there's Shaun and his best friend Ed confronted with advancing zombies, with only Shaun's record collection as weapons, and they actually take time to debate which record can be sacrificed. (Shaun wants to save Purple Rain and the Stone Roses, but Prince's Batman soundtrack is fair game.)

And it's also good and horrifying. There's no skimping on the gore -- Shaun is a true zombie flick, in the grand Romero tradition, with blood and guts and everything. Though the creatures are often played for laughs, there are more than a few scenes of genuine, frightening menace, gripping action, grisly violence, and emotionally affecting tragedy. The film plays off all the familiar elements of the classic zombie films (complete with in-jokes -- when Shaun and Ed call Shaun's mom on the phone, and tell her they're going to rescue her, Ed yells, "We're coming to get you, Barbara!" -- a great reference to Night of the Living Dead), but it uses them well, satirizing them and taking them seriously at the same time. It all works out to one of the best movies I've seen in the theaters this year.