Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost kicked off their trio of genre-homaging parody movies — collectively dubbed the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy — with 2004’s Shaun of the Dead. In addition to being a spot-on lampoon of zombie movies, Shaun is surprisingly also one of the greatest zombie movies ever made. Without the jokes, it would work just fine as a straight horror film.
It takes a comedic approach to a familiar zombie-infested story, but its use of the tropes and conventions defined by George A. Romero in Night of the Living Dead is more effective than most non-comedic attempts to emulate Romero’s work.
Great Comedy: Endlessly Quotable Dialogue
Much like fellow Cornetto entries Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, Shaun of the Dead is a hilariously quotable comedy. There are a few repeated lines that fans can use as in-jokes, like “You’ve got red on you,” or “What’s the matter, David? Never taken a shortcut before?”
But most of the movie’s quotable lines are even funny out of context, like “F*ck-a-doodle-doo,” “Bash ‘em in the head, that seems to work out,” and “How’s that for a slice of fried gold?”
Better Zombie Movie: Pitch-Perfect Pacing
In addition to being masterfully structured and packed with as many jokes as possible, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s airtight screenplay for Shaun of the Dead is perfectly paced. It doesn’t dive right into the scares, nor does it wait too long.
Like all well-paced horror scripts, from Psycho to Halloween to Alien, Shaun of the Dead takes the time to introduce its characters and their world before the monsters show up.
Great Comedy: Relatable Characters
While most zombie movies’ living characters are completely forgettable, the characters in Shaun of the Dead are relatable. Dame Penelope Wilton’s turn as Barbara is a spot-on mom performance. Ed’s laziness is identifiable and endearing. David is interminable, but everyone knows a David.
The most relatable of all is Shaun himself, who Simon Pegg plays as an everyman. His roommates Pete and Ed represent the two sides of his personality: Pete is his ambition and Ed is the childishness holding him back.
Better Zombie Movie: Effective Jump Scares
As a lot of recent horror duds have shown, jump scares are difficult to pull off. It’s not enough for a monster to jump out at the audience; it’s all about effectively building to each scare.
From common horror movie tricks like a shocking reveal in a bathroom mirror to unexpectedly gruesome moments like David’s disembowelment, Edgar Wright filled Shaun of the Dead with effective horror moments.
Great Comedy: Sight Gags
A lot of modern comedy movies are just lightly edited improv that don’t make full use of the cinematic medium and only go for laughs through spoken dialogue.
From the iconic fence-hopping bit to the two tracking shots of Shaun walking to the store (one pre-apocalypse and one post-apocalypse), Shaun of the Dead has an abundance of visual comedy.
Better Zombie Movie: Consistent Lore
Inconsistent lore doesn’t sound like it would be a big deal in a horror movie, but it is the quickest way to take the audience out of the reality of the terror. Movies like It Follows lose some of their impact because the monster that the heroes are up against is never clearly defined.
In Shaun of the Dead, the zombie lore is kept nice and consistent. An early TV news report outlines exactly how to kill zombies — “by removing the head or destroying the brain” — and the movie sticks to it.
Great Comedy: Perfectly Matched Leads
Well-matched leads are key to any great comedy. Step Brothers wouldn’t work anywhere near as well without Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly’s chemistry. Nor would Booksmart without Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein’s spark.
And Shaun of the Dead greatly benefits from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s real-life friendship. The tangible BFF dynamic shared by Shaun and Ed in the movie can’t be faked.
Better Zombie Movie: It’s Not Really About Zombies
The best zombie movies aren’t really about zombies. They either use the undead to deliver social commentary, like Dawn of the Dead’s satire of consumerism, or to pressure the living characters to face their personal problems. Shaun of the Dead is an example of the latter.
With Shaun’s life stalling and his relationship with Liz coming to an end, the movie has plenty of conflict before the zombies show up. The apocalypse is what forces Shaun to finally make some changes in his life.
Great Comedy: Parody
While Shaun of the Dead functions as a great zombie movie on its own, it is primarily a self-aware lampoon of the genre. Like Airplane! and Young Frankenstein, Shaun of the Dead is a spot-on spoof with many meta-references to its satirical target.
For example, the movie draws attention to the fact that zombie movies rarely identify the undead as “zombies” when Ed calls them zombies and Shaun tells him not to use “the Z-word.”
Better Zombie Movie: A Unique Twist On The Romero Template
George A. Romero’s early zombie movies Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead established the template for entries in the genre: when the dead rise from their graves, a group of survivors hole up in a secluded spot and attempt to ride out the end of the world there.
In Shaun of the Dead, Wright and Pegg put a unique twist on this template. They transplanted Romero’s template to a British setting by having the survivors hole up in their local pub.