Remembering Z Day: A Brief Look Back At Shaun Of The Dead

This year is something of a milestone that is somewhat personal to me; on the 19th of July 2013, the third and final film in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s “Blood And Ice Cream”/”Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy, The World’s End, was released. I still haven’t got around to watching the film yet (I sadly never got around to going to the cinema while it was still showing), but I’ve put everyone that has on a “Spoil On Pain Of Death” clause until I do get a chance to see it, because I have something of an attachment to the film series; Edgar Wright was one of the first movie directors that left enough of an impact on me for me to call him a favourite of mine, and the trilogy as a whole served as my proper introduction to not only his work, but also the work- and indeed existence of- people such as Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Oscar Wright, and the films have also been a huge showcase of talent old and new that bring only their best to the productions.

And it’s kind of surreal to think it started with a moderate-budget little send up of the zombie genre that didn’t substitute either horror, comedy, or drama for each other, and managed to blend them all in such a way that I’m still not entirely sure Simon and Edgar aren’t some kind of mood-and-genre bending aliens from the planet Nerd.

Shaun Of The Dead rocked onto our screens in 2004, advertising itself as a Rom Zom Com- a Romantic Comedy with Zombies. The story centres around Shaun Riley, a man in his (very) late 20s who is still living the Co-Ed dream,

After battling a few zombies in and around their home, Shaun and Ed hatch a plan; head over to Shaun’s parents’ place, kill Phillip (who they had discovered via a phone call had been bitten), grab his mum, head over to Liz’s flat, then head to the Winchester (of course), have a nice cold pint, and wait for all this fuss to blow over, like true British people. It goes without saying that things don’t go as smoothly as hoped, and before long the group finds themselves in a wholly undesirable situation and are forced to fight for their lives against an ever increasing horde of the damned unrested.

I’d have still just about been finishing off primary school and was only just coming up to 12 around about the time the film came out; needless to say my first viewing of it blew my mind all over the room. I knew what zombies were- damn son, I’d already played a shitton of House Of The Dead and Resident Evil by this point- and I was at least

tangibly aware of who George A. Romero was and what the names of his films were, but I think this may well have been one of the first, if not the first zombie film I ever saw. Purists may scoff at that but I’d argue it’s a damn good film to start out with. I often see this film categorised as a “parody” and a lot of it’s early marketing and trailers played it as if it was a straight comedy from start to finish, and to call it as such is vastly underselling the film; for the two banal fart gags, you get some pretty well rounded characters (with fully realised character development for some of them as a nice bonus), the kind of pathos you’d usually expect from a zombie film, enough gore to satisfy the bloodlust of many a viewer without bordering on the cartoonishly extravagant, and more then enough genuine horror to please- there was actually a gag featuring some zombies that was cut from the final film because Edgar didn’t want the zombies themselves to be the butt of a joke at any given point, so they remained consistently threatening.That’s why I love this film so much; the comedy is there, but the comedy is mostly character driven more then situation driven, and any comedy that comes at the expense of the situation is less about the situation itself, and more about the cast’s utter inability to deal with it properly, or their tendency to let their petty bullshit overshadow the bigger picture. Much of the darker corners of the film also spring from the fact that the cast can't seem to get past their hang ups even in the face of the end of the world, which only serves to make the bitter counterpoints to the sweet that much more difficult to gulp down. And that's not all; Edgar and Simon is also known for putting a staggering amount of references to other media in their work- in some cases even down to the way shots are framed- but they’re not jammed in there forcefully to make other people feel good for catching them, they’re there because the pair have a very obvious love for the things they reference, and they have a talent for putting them in something and having them flow naturally with the story at hand. The sound design is also brilliant; the original music provided by Pete Woodhead and Daniel Mudford is closer in style to synth-heavy scores of late 70s and early 80s horror flicks with some modern twists and sensibilities, and it adds to the film’s character in a way a more conventional orchestral score wouldn’t. It also helps that the score is incredibly catchy, with the tracks Normality and Burn Down The Sun being personal favourites. The selection of licensed tracks mixed in is also fantastic, and all of them are used just as effectively as the original score- this is the film that made me buy the Orpheus single and turned me on to I Monster, and even though it’s a damned obvious joke, I still get a little giggle out of the tinny rendition of Kernkraft 400 filtering out of the dude on the bus’ headphones. And even though it should go without saying, the detail that went into making the zombies look horrifying shows considerably, and many of the films’ revenants have become suitably iconic as a result. I don’t think there’s a single person that’s seen this film and hasn’t had the image of the Twins burned into their retinas. One of the details I liked was the choice to have all the zombies (barring the Zombie Tyres) dress in muted, earthy tones; it's one of the many little details about the design of the film that ties the whole thing together neatly.Every aspect of the film has a lot of thought and love put into it, and THAT is why it works so well. That’s why it became such a success and skyrocketed Edgar, Simon, Nick, and damn near everyone involved with Shaun (and it’s follow up, Hot Fuzz) that hadn’t already achieved it toward international super stardom. The film is so loved is because it isn’t a phoned-in parody that's so bogged down with crass cheap shots and weak jabs at the formula done just for the paycheque and self-satisfied smugness about it's "intelligence"; it’s a love letter to the genre with laughs left and right (but that knows when to take itself seriously), and even some nine years after it’s release, it still feels as fresh as the brains it splattered over the silver screen all those years ago.

~ Decon, 21/10/13

Images sourced from cinematicfilmblog, dvdbeaver, owleyesmagazine, talkbacker, hd4desktop, and news.com.au