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Shaun of the Dead - 10 years on
Other | Thursday 3rd July 2014 | Annalisa
Ten years ago this September, one of the best crossover films of this generation was released in theatres. It didn't have a huge following right off the bat or catch on (like it deserved to), but time was on the side of this lil' film that could. And sure enough, a decade later, Shaun Of The Dead is revered as a cult classic. For those unfamiliar—um, how could you be?!—the film serves as the first installment in Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's "Cornetto Trilogy" that also includes Hot Fuzz and The World's End, the latter of which we gave an 8/10 in our review.
Getting back to Shaun Of The Dead, it perfectly combines aspects of a zombie apocalypse film with that of a romantic comedy. This is accomplished through the loser-who-loses-the-girl-but-gets-her-back (the titular character played by Pegg) and the girl-who-the-loser-wants-to-get-back (Kate Ashfield's Liz). While their love story is at the centre of the film, it quickly gets pushed to the side, albeit somewhat gently, by the fact that the world may be coming to end.
Enter the zombies—sort of—and the kick-ass soundtrack filled with tunes by Queen, Lemon Jelly, and the Smiths. The bit with Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" is probably one of the movie's best scenes and deserves a rewatch when you have the time, it's on Youtube.
Getting back to the zombies, they don't exactly jump up and scare the pants off anyone in the film. Rather, they slowly but surely get recognised by the hungover Shaun and his best pal, Ed (portrayed brilliantly by Frost). In fact, Shaun "encounters" several of them without even realizing it, though that changes once they notice the "drunk" girl in their backyard. What ensues is nearly 100 minutes of hilarity with touches of sincerity and gore, with the gore primarily stemming from any and all interactions with the undead.
With all of this going for it, including rave reviews from critics, you would assume this film was a box-office smash right? Wrong. For whatever reason, the movie really never took off in theatres and only earned 17.5 GBP in revenue worldwide. That's not necessarily terrible, but it's not indicative of movie loved by so many. So what exactly happened?
Perhaps it's just the fact that people weren't really too interested in zombie films at the time. To be fair, the undead weren't everywhere like they are now. Remember: "The Walking Dead" wasn't on TV yet and most of the more recent zombie flicks were disappointing, if not downright bad. But they needed something to pull them back in the public's good favour, and that is exactly what Shaun Of The Dead did.
Picturebox Films makes note of all this in their review of the film. Writer James King states that the Scary Movie franchise was still fresh on everyone's minds—and sadly, still going on—so people weren't about to be too interested in another "spoof" horror movie. But as Kelly adds, this was "the movie everyone wanted to champion" and that "it's the long-lasting audience love that's continued to keep Shaun in the spotlight."
To that end, perhaps it's not that big of a deal that Shaun Of The Dead didn't set any box-office records. Perhaps it just needed to be the movie to, as I wrote earlier, spark the creativity in the horror/comedy crossover world. While it remains arguable that it was capable of inspiring anyone outside of Pegg and Frost's camp, at least it gave us Hot Fuzz and The World's End, right?
