A Movie You Might Have Missed #21 — Shaun of the Dead

It's been 10 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Shaun and his best friend are a couple of slackers. A good evening is one that ends at the pub and every evening ends at the pub. Shaun's girlfriend is less than pleased with this lack of initiative, especially after celebrating their third anniversary ... at the pub. She breaks up with Shaun who is so distraught that he doesn't notice all there is a zombie epidemic all around them. This leads to some hilarious scenes, such as when Shaun and his friend first encounter zombies and think they are drunks. Shaun takes the lead in rescuing his mum and ex-girlfriend to take them to the safest place he can think of ... the pub. This truly is a romantic comedy with the original twist being the zombies.

I was anxious to see this from the first moment I heard the premise, yet put it off for fear of the "R" rating (for zombie violence ... yes, that's actually what it says). There is plenty of warning for any such scenes and much of it is so fake that it doesn't matter. The directors are really good at combining our awareness that this is a zombie movie with Shaun's general cluelessness to provide many very funny jump scenes as well.