In 2004, I was still in my horror movie era where I would happily watch anything scary, from gory, serial killer bloodbaths to evil spirits and possession to Dario Argento’s entire oeuvre. These days, the hardest I go when it comes to “scary” stuff is cozy murder mysteries where elderly people solve crimes. It’s the circle of life. So, in the fall of 2004 when a friend invited me to see Shaun of the Dead, a new “rom-zom-com” (romantic zombie comedy, as we now know), I was game despite never having heard of the filmmaker, Edgar Wright, or the stars, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
What I watched would become my favorite scary movie of all time, and now it’s on Peacock. I can watch zombie brains get obliterated to the soundtrack of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now as often as I want.
The stars of Shaun of the Dead were not recognizable names in the US, with the exception of Lucy Davis, who had just crossed over into the American consciousness when the original Ricky Gervais version of The Office became popular. Yet, unless you had somehow pirated the great British sitcom Spaced, which most of us didn’t do, Pegg and Frost were newcomers. In the film, Pegg stars as Shaun, a London TV salesman who’s just been dumped by his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). He lives with his slacker roommate Ed (Frost) and another roommate (Peter Serafinowicz) who’s a jerk and totally gets what’s coming to him when a zombie apocalypse hits.
As zombies infest the city, Shaun and Ed team up with Liz and her friends, including Dianne (Davis) and David (Dylan Moran) to save themselves and Shaun’s mother (Penelope Wilton) and stepfather (Bill Nighy) from getting bitten. On paper, it sounds like every other zombie movie, but thanks to Wright’s distinct style of smash cuts and fast-paced montages, the most terrifying moments are rendered hilarious. Throughout the film, Shaun attempts to prove his worth to win Liz back, reluctantly uses his album collection to destroy the brains of the undead and has to make peace with the stepfather he hates.
Shaun of the Dead could be considered a parody, as the title is an obvious riff on Dawn of the Dead. At the time, I assumed it might have been a take on that other British virus outbreak movie, 28 Days Later, which hit theaters in 2002. Shaun of the Dead seems to have a 28 Days Later Easter egg buried in its final scene that references that film’s rage virus, but Pegg and Wright, who co-wrote the film, have said it’s not. In fact, they say they wrote Shaun of the Dead before 28 Days Later was released.
Shaun of the Dead employs some classic zombie movie tropes, but genre-wise, the film veers into its own lane, becoming more of a coming-of-age film about Shaun’s evolution from perpetual adolescence to a man running from the undead straight into adulthood. The movie defies any one genre: Scary but sentimental, gory but with fart jokes. While “rom-zom-com” might have been clever marketing, it’s a label that clearly defined what the movie was, and has spawned copycats since its release (hello, Warm Bodies).
Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the second film of the filmmakers’ Cornetto Trilogy, both arrived on Peacock on Oct. 1. While there aren’t a lot of scary movies I’d go back and rewatch, given that I’ve evolved into my “heartwarming escapism” decade, I will never not watch Shaun of the Dead.
