Zombie Rom Com?

Last updated: 09/10/2006 - 10:25

Shaun is having a bad day: girl trouble, new father-in-law trouble, zombie trouble - and it's dead down the pub too...

Shaun Of The Dead

Shaun is in a rut. He?s 29 and coasting through life, never threatening to fulfil his potential. He lives with Ed his best friend from junior school and Pete, his lesser friend from college. Pete and Ed don?t get on, perhaps because Ed is somewhat lazy and Pete is a slightly irritating stuck up business man, devoid of any vestige of the amiability that got him and Shaun together in the first place.

Then there?s Liz, Shaun?s girlfriend, also 29. An attractive, fun loving, intelligent woman who is understandably starting to think about the future, something Shaun tries resolutely to ignore. She is getting increasingly uneasy about the amount of time Shaun spends with Ed. Any intimacy they manage to achieve socially is usually at The Winchester a local pub, with Ed present. And having grown tired of the triangle, Liz has taken to bringing out her two friends David and Di, the former a fastidious know-it-all, the latter a dizzy wannabe actress.

Liz is frustrated and Shaun has his head in the sand. Shaun?s love life is not a happy one.

Lastly there?s Shaun?s Mum, Barbara. She is lovely, a caring, doting ?everymother?, whom Shaun adores. Unfortunately, twelve years ago, Barbara married Philip, a pompous, bossy, bully of a man who became Shaun?s stepfather and drove an awkward wedge between mum and boy. Shaun?s family life is...you guessed it: troubled.

The 'Relationship' Conversation

As the film opens we join Shaun on a Friday night in the pub with Liz and Ed and David and Di, trying to have a relationship conversation with his patient girlfriend. The resolution of this is an affirmation that Shaun will change for the better and to prove it, he will take Liz to a renowned fish restaurant the next night and give her the third anniversary meal they never had. All he has to do is book it.

But Saturday is a strange day. Things seem distinctly odd. Suicides on the Underground hold up the tube trains. People are fainting in the street, TV seems to show constant news footage of some unexplained calamity and did that tramp just try to eat a pigeon? After a long confusing day, Shaun gets home only to realise he has forgotten to book the restaurant and his alternative suggestion of going to The Winchester is the final straw for Liz, who decides to finish her relationship with Shaun, despite his passionate protests.

Saturday ends up in the pub, in the dark, drunk and full of remorse. After an argument with Pete and the day?s events clouding his mind, Shaun decides to change. Tomorrow, he will get his life together. He will square things with his estranged girlfriend. He will visit his Mum. Everything will be fine.

Unfortunately ?the dead?, have risen in London. Yesterday?s strangeness has transformed overnight into a full on Zombie apocalypse. Despite the obvious initial shock, Shaun is intent, Zombies or no Zombies, on fulfilling the promises he made to himself and sets out to rescue his girlfriend and his Mum and take them to the safest place he can think of, The Winchester.

Undead

Of course things don?t go entirely to plan as Shaun, and of course Ed, are joined by David, Dianne and Philip as well as Barbara and Liz, and the journey to the pub is far from uneventful. Once in the pub, tempers become frayed and a long running feud between David and Shaun comes to the boil. As the group fight for their lives with pool queues, bar stools and an antique rifle, they are slowly whittled down by the encroaching hordes of the undead, who are desperate to get into the pub and eat the survivors...

Directed by Edgar Wright, from an original screenplay by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead is an everyday tale of life, love and the living dead focussing on a group of friends who encounter a literal night from hell at their local pub, under attack from a zombie invasion.

Silver Scream - Zombies, a novices guide...

Zombies are no strangers to the silver screen. Since the dawn of Hollywood, classic films such as the Night of The Living Dead, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead, Dawn of The Dead and more recently British horror 28 Days Later have graced cinemas across the world. But the question still remains; what exactly is 'a zombie'?

The Cambridge dictionary describes a zombie in two ways:

1 - a person who lacks energy, seems to act without thinking and is not aware of what is happening around them

2 - a dead person who is believed, in some Caribbean religions, to have been brought back to life by magic

In the case of Shaun of The Dead, the latter is of course more appropriate. Or maybe not.

What are the main characteristics of a zombie?

The main characteristics have long been argued over but below are some of the more accepted features:

1.Zombies primarily crave human flesh and eat whenever they can

2.Zombies can tell the difference between those alive and those already dead and will not attack another zombie

3.Zombies don?t seem to run very fast

4.They always seem to have blood coming out of their mouth

5.They always seem to wear really tatty clothes that they could not possibly have been buried in

6.Their arms are always held out in front of them

7.They have lost the ability to talk without grunting

8.They always appear from nowhere

So how does one eliminate a zombie?

Zombies can be killed in a number of ways. Although none of these have been proven, a number of films have come up with various strategies:

1.Poke them in the eye with something pointy - a blade, spike, pointed stick...

2.Shoot them through the heart

3.Try reasoning with them

4.Kill them with dry wit or a ?knock knock? joke

5.Launch a full scale war with bazookas

6.Make them drink a blood thickening agent

7.Decapitate them by throwing old vinyl records from your collection at them (as is the case in Shaun of The Dead)

8.Get your three wood from the golf bag and swing away

9.Become Brian Lara and knock them for six with a cricket bat

As a failsafe to the suggestions above, if you see a zombie ? RUN! - unless of course it?s a member of your family stuck in front of the telly all day...

The comedy horror stars most of the cats of TV's Spaced - Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Lucy Davis, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy and Jessica Stevenson.

A WT? production in association with Big Talk Productions, the film shot for nine weeks at Ealing Studios and on location in London and is released worldwide by Universal Pictures. The producer is Nira Park, the executive producers are Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Natascha Wharton, James Wilson and Alison Owen.

Shaun of the Dead is out on DVD now.