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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Shaun of the dead

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14:38 / 13.04.04

ed stole the show.schreeching to a halt in the spinning jag,trying to impress shaun's mum.'chill out'fucking magic.the first half was best though yeah.spaced is still my favourite pegg-baby.

14:46 / 13.04.04

I hope you're not disappointed, Stoatie. I fear that high expectations might put you at a disadvantage here. I'd also recommend you avoid seeing it at the UGC Trocadero, where the aging projector appears to have developed Parkinsons.

To be honest, I thought it was pretty much on a par with any of the weaker episodes of Spaced. So, you know, it's really good. But Ed just made me miss Mike, and the brief appearances of Jessica Stevenson just served to highlight that she wasn't in it (if you see what I mean).

There are some great lines - and Ed didn't get them all, Suedehead; I draw your attention to Shaun discussing his step-dad with his mum: 'Did you know that he touched me?'. But on a broader definition, my favourite gag was Shaun's brief skid in the corner shop as he goes about his morning routine, oblivious to the carnage. It's always the little things.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:57 / 13.04.04

Suedehead- That'll be Nick Frost you're thinking of.

18:02 / 13.04.04

Never better than in the Aero ads, IMO.

Whisky Priestess

18:16 / 13.04.04

I think Orr should kill Nick Frost and steal his career. All those who know him will understand when they see it.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

20:13 / 13.04.04

Oh, I know Ed didn't get all the best lines! But I am in love with Nick Frost. He sticks in my miiind. It's all about the way he says it. Although Mike is better. But that's probably just because that was written for him based on what he's actually like...

(I loved the fence jumping gag, too)

Jessica popping up - that felt kind of like a little Spaced-ref.... but yeah, she should have been there more.

It's just so nice to see all the British comedy lot knocking about on the big screen though, isn't it?

13:17 / 14.04.04

I thought it was absolutely great! Especially the bit with the records. And I had a tear in my eye when he was forced to do you know what to you know who (desperately trying not to spoil this for people!).

The locations were fab too. Doncha just feel that you've walked down that street and bought a pack of fags in that newsagent?

13:58 / 14.04.04

That's exactly it. I live in those streets, I've walked down them, I've gone to those shops, drank in that pub and that's what makes it all the more scary when they are FULL TO THE BRIM WITH THE LIVING DEAD. And that's what made the walk home from the cinema extra special.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:59 / 14.04.04

I thought it fucking rocked. Both as a comedy, AND as a zombie movie. Like "Kill Bill" (imho), the parody never seemed snide or smug, cos it was made with such an obvious love of the genre.

I won't go into my favourite bits, cos I can't be arsed with all that spoiler warning malarkey.

But I loved it. Yeah, the first half was funnier- but after this thread I was expecting a severe drop into "shit second half hell" which failed to materialise.

Yeah, there should have been more Jessica Stevenson. But fuck, you can't expect the poor buggers to keep doing "Spaced" for the rest of their careers, and this was close enough in spirit to "Spaced" to keep me happy.

The cast didn't seem to have a single weak link... the script was great... the zombies were good... the English lad's love of the boozer was exceptionally close to home... and the zombie effects were fucking wicked.

Okay, it was less "edgy" than Spaced... but that's how they got it on a big screen rather than a late-night Channel 4 slot followed by a devoted but probably less-than-lucrative cult following.

And as zombie movies go, it shoots the "Dawn of the Dead" remake right through the brain. And I was among the few who actually LIKED that.

Aah... zombies. And pubs. Truly, this was my ideal film.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

23:52 / 15.04.04

You are the winner! Nicely put, Stoat. Agreed on every count.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:20 / 16.04.04

"Ash can't make it in today." Nice.

d'you know, I didn't even register that line at the time? I'm so gonna have to see it again.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:57 / 16.04.04

I also loved Tyres' brief appearance as the walking dead...

I really enjoyed this, although I did find the walk home awful - definite zombie fear, and much more so than 28 Days Later, say, because whereas I don't spend much time wandering around a *completely empty* Mall, I do spend a lot of time wandering around rows of identical houses. So, yes.

It was scarier than I was expecting - to the extent that I don't think it can quite be identified just as a parody. In fact, although it was funny, I found the bits which were pure whimsy - like the record argument - less fulfilling (although v. funny). Whereas things like the brief glimpse of tiny tots chowing down on their mother...

Having said which, I would have liked to have seen more character development - I was expecting Yvonne, for example, to be a character rather than a running joke, and possibly for there to be a subplot involving Shaun and her.

Speaking of which, quick and utterly spoilertastic question for the class:

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

When Yvonne says "it's good that some of you made it" at the end, do you think she is trying to put the best possible spin on the fact that Shaun's plan was a silly plan, or was it that she was the only survivor of her group? I quite like the ambiguity, but I'm wondering what people think...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:36 / 16.04.04

Hadn't really thought about it... but I think I prefer the first. Will have to see it again to see if in fact she wasn't just being plain sarcastic. Which would be best of all.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

12:26 / 17.04.04

I suspect the latter as the idea is that she's doing exactly the same as Shaun's group, just in the opposite direction. I do want to see it again just to play Spot The Zombie. Tyres, Adam, Joe...

18:56 / 17.04.04

Well what can I possibly do here except echo everybody else and say, wow, what a magnificently great film that succeeds on every count..

I think it got more genuine, intentional laughter from me than any other film in years.. and awesome classically styled zombie action too..

I was really glad they stuck with the proper level of gore, cos I can imagine just about everybody at every step of the way on the levels between the filmmakers and audience going "but this is a comedy, we can't have guts and dead kids and stuff!" "YES WE CAN!" say the filmmakers, and I salute them for that. In addition to saluting them for making such a superb film.

The references to previous zombie films were done really subtley and effectively too - never shoved in yr. face like "Look!! We're doing that bit from Evil Dead II!!" or whatever, but still there for the geeks to giggle over - like the way Dylan Morran's character was the absolute text book cowardly-antagonist-who-nearly gets-everybody-killed, as seen in all three Romero films, and..

!!SPOILERS!!

..he dies in exactly the same way as the asshole military boss guy in Day of the Dead, creating exactly the same "he's being horribly and sadistically killed by zombies, but, ha ha, we're quite enjoying watching it cos he's a bit of an asshole.. hang on, that's a bit twisted isn't it?" reaction in the audience.

The scariest thing in the film though was the first section, before the zombies show up - it's such an authentic recreation of real life that it's absolutely terrifying! Not a single detail changed, and everything seems totally depressing.. if you see what I mean. It was like Spaced, but far less cartoonish and with a far higher level of realism..

And then the whole "reaction of two hopeless slacker guys who find a zombie in their back garden" sequence is the most genius bit of comedy I've seen in years..
"What do we do now?"
"Let's.. have a sit down."

And if I continue this post, it's just going to dissolve into "and that bit with blah blah, ha ha, that was great!", so I'll stop now.

20:17 / 18.04.04

SPOILERS blah.

Really, really fun film. I was worried that it was going to fail to live up to expectations, but that so wasn't the case. The part from the trailer, with them reversing to see if the guy they've just run over is a zombie or not, felt a bit 'wacky Brit comedy' in the trailer, which is what I was scared of, but worked fine in the full scene. British funny-film in "actually funny" shocka.

Proper horrible, sweaty 'how the fuck do you kill your friends' bit in the pub cellar - the awfullness of zombie-driven mercy killings and suicide has never been done better.

Echoing Riz in the appreciation of superbly well-done nods to other films. Short burst of music while the Universal logo appears from NotLD, yeah? Also the radio report in the background during the first walk to the shop - "returning satellite breaking up on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere." Little snatches of dialogue every now and again. Morran's character was totally Mr Cooper, right down to the 'shotgun gets knocked to floor, coward tries to shoot hero' bit.

Felt the last TV clip, the zombies = service workers gag, was clumsy and unnecessary, hammering home the suggestion made in the opening shots for those in the audience who'd slept through the first five minutes, but otherwise everything was aces.

21:01 / 18.04.04

I too enjoyed it, a lot. Everyone's basically been through the reasons why; it took the genre it placed itself in seriously, and was funny pruely because it had amusing jokes - not because it was sending up the genre. The running-over-zombie sequence works better in the film because, in the real thing, you can see that the guy's leg is entirely fucked, and thus if it was a pedestrian, they are in deep trouble. This doesn't show up in the edited trailer, obviously.

Also, again, very glad they kept the whole gore level up. Suitably messy, suitably low-budget. And so satisfying to watch David go.

Re: the music - forget the NotLD thing, but the moment that music came over the Universal logo, it was all very John Carpenter. Precinct 13, that kind of thing - came back in the pub, too.

My only problem was that in the end, Ed was just far too dislikable; not a funny slob, just a slob. He got some good lines, and his Flavor Flav impression got a big laugh from me, but in the end, it wasn't that he wasn't as good a character as Mike - he actually wasn't as likable as Mike.

It's all running back through me head again, and it's a great, great deal of fun. Poor Penelope Wilton.

(And if I had to quote one, just one, more line? "It's not hip-hop. It's electro."

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

21:24 / 18.04.04

I think... think that having Ed be somewhat dislikeable is because of the genre it places itself in. I'm not sure, I'm not big on zombie movies, but doesn't there have to be somebody like that?

I'm agreed with you, although I still found he had the most amusing lines for me. Probably because, y'know, they shouldn't have been.

The more I think about this film the more I like it, and think that it succeeds in doing everything it was supposed to.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:55 / 19.04.04

I didn't see Ed as unlikeable, just a bit dumb and feckless (am I misremembering, or did he use the c-word in a 15 rated film?). What particular things did you not like about him?

07:16 / 19.04.04

did he use the c-word in a 15 rated film?

More than once, I think. The fact that they did the "He's not my boyfriend! ... Cheers babe" joke from Spaced made me happy, though.

So many good things, most of which have already been mentioned... I also want to watch it again in a zombie-spotting way, I had to have it pointed out to me afterwards which one was Tyres, and completely failed to spot Adam or Joe.

11:31 / 19.04.04

Yeah, Ed did say "can I get any of you cunts a drink?", but C-words aren't verboten from 15-rated films - usually when they're moderately borderline in other categories. Glengarry Glen Ross springs to mind, for one. Also, the context is important - it's being used by an idiot as an affectionate piece of swearing, it's not being used in an overtly sexual or violent manner, so that probably worked in its favour. I don't know; the BBFC ain't what it was when I were a lad.

[BBFC geek hat off]

17:15 / 19.04.04

Was the film really 15??

But.. a guy gets his guts torn out and eaten..

forfuckssake, what are the BBFC like? They're the most half-arsed and inconsistent bunch of government appointed censors ever.. probably to the joy of 15 year olds everywhere in this case..

18:46 / 19.04.04

[Walks groovily, heads ball, snogs girl] Yaaaaaayyy. [Arms raised].
That was the only thing missing.
Oh. And Hawk the Slayer IS rubbish.

00:04 / 20.04.04

Babylon 5's a piece of shit.

Man that was a good movie.

08:26 / 20.04.04

...how could I forget Ed's greatest line, in response to an inquiry about some poor male zombie, if I recall correctly:

"Fuck the man."

Genius.

10:16 / 20.04.04

I loved the bit where they try to get the groaning zombie to join in with their drunken song..

"He didn't even say 'word' or 'bass' or something."

"What a tit."

10:39 / 20.04.04

I thought that was going to be a Thriller pastiche. Didn't quite turn out like that. But the thing I was laughing at in my head was good...

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:17 / 26.08.04

US trailer is out. I like the way it manages to miss some of the really cool stuff about the movie, and has the by-now-traditional bathetic tricolon; I'm not sure how you sell something this English to the US. Also, do you think they noticed that Nick Frost says the second-most foul of foul words?

14:37 / 26.08.04

Its a pity that the line about 'where can we go where we feel safe, we know where the exits are and we can smoke' will probably fail to strike quite the same cord the other side of the atlantic...

00:17 / 27.08.04

yeah when i was over there they never seemed to get the whole "pub as an extention of your living room" thing

and plus the relationship a man has with his local boozers landlord will make the jukebox moment a bit less horrifingly moving.

QUEEN "dont stop me now, im having such a good time"

13:31 / 27.08.04

I saw a preview of it last week here in America and it went over like gangbusters. I think the Americans that are likely to see a movie like this spend more than enough time sitting in their local bars to get the pub mentality.

The only jokes that really suffered from the trans-atlantic journey (that I was aware of)were when Nick asks for that specific brand of ice cream cone and when they run into the other gang of survivors (because it took my entire group to piece together that they were all stars of other British tv shows and therefore like the cast of a rival movie).

01:09 / 28.08.04

(WP)

Has just struck me how similar "realism" and "nihilism" sound. But i am a bit drunk and have spent the last hour or two watching a lady doing amazxing things with a hula hoop and clowns stripping.

I love edinburgh.

11:57 / 06.09.04

well it took me long enough but i finally saw this at the weekend - probably my favourite zombie film of all time now, and also the last one i want to see for a good while: it totally severed 28 days later's spinal column, and head-shot the remake of dawn of the dead that i caught the first ten minutes of ages ago. the apocalypse, i'm convinced, will look far more like shaun of the dead than either of the 'new' z- films mentioned above.

that was what was so good - the scenes and sets were actually believable, and so actually scary: the 'tramp' eating the pigeons in the park, busses whizzing by oblivious, 'i got mugged by crackheads or something, one of them bit me'. (i've not seen the manchester morgue one, and can't think of any other homespun z-films) but the sensitiver emotions rang true too: mum and step dad's exits rather got the weeps going. and it makes you laugh a lot, that goes without

ed was the best character: 'do any of you cunts want a drink?' who doesn't use this line all the time?

shame the army had to come in at all really with the guns and ammo bit, but we had plenty of spade and cricket-bat action up to that point - the shoehorning in of the pub-gun was an appropriate running joke. z-films are the only possible good argument for private gun ownership, 'just in case'.

great soundtrack too - begins with the bleakest no1 in the history of pop, and goes on to those handsome young lads from the 80s matchbox who were hanging around outside borders yesterday afternoon: 'does it make you feel MENTAL? do you suffer from MENTAL?' or something.

reason ms. stevenson wasn't in it so much and the bits she was in were so awkward: her and peggy hate each other.

my favourite cameos were trisha's and krishnan-news'. what were yours?

17:29 / 06.09.04

I love all the moment when Shaun is looking like he is in deep thought, stroking his goatee, with everyone looking at him, and you just get the sense that he hasn't got a clue what to do apart from hot things with a cricket bat and get to the pub.

"Hello mate, no I was munted" is also a class line.

Peggy and Jessica don't get on? She's a little more actory, but I thought it was because she was too busy on other stuff? Maybe there was a subtext there!

Haus of Mystery

20:09 / 28.09.04

The swingball bit.

I've been waiting my whole life for that moment.

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