SHAUN OF THE DEAD!!!!

Shaun of the Dead is, for a moment, my favorite movie. I'm not even letting other movies hang around this movie right now. It's that good. It may not be good in the Hollywood comedy or Hollywood horror sense, but it has all of those elements and will easily become one of the greatest cult movies of all time. If you don't like cult movies, get into them. More importantly, stop going to see anything put out by Hollywood. If there's a Hollywood movie you really want to see, whether it be mindless action, a stupid comedy with too many crude jokes, a chick flick, or a cookie-cutter suspense movie, you can rent it. It's not worth paying $8 or more to walk out of a movie and say, "I thought it was good. There was this one part..." Use your money wisely. See Shaun of the Dead in theaters.

The plot of the movie goes something like this: Shaun is 29 and a college graduate working at the London equivalent of Radio Shack. He hangs out with his incredibly lazy roommate Ed and also lives with a corporate ladder-climber named Pete. He has a girlfriend, Liz, who hates the fact that all he ever wants to do is go to the Winchester for a pint. Liz dumps him and Pete turns into a zombie. Heck, pretty much everyone turns into a zombie, which is no big deal because the first 15 minutes or so of the movie are dedicated to showing how zombie-like everyday life is. Shaun and Ed think the first few zombies they see are actually just drunks...until the zombies try to eat them. They proceed to try to kill them with Shaun's record collection, which a) doesn't work and b) destroys some pretty choice records of Shaun's. Eventually, they settle on some blunt objects from the shed. They then make a plan to go outside (against the news anchor's warnings) and save his now-ex-girlfriend and his mum from the zombies and hole up in the Winchester and have a few drinks 'til the whole thing blows over. Great plan, right?

Sorry, it's been over a week since I saw the movie. I don't even remember offhand what moments sent me into pound-the-seat fits of laughter and made my girlfriend snort. The movie doesn't stop at zombie comedy, however, as it gets real serious at the end when Shaun and his band have to kill the zombies of people they knew and loved. The movie has everything. Action, suspense, humor, sorrow...if you don't get it, I feel bad for you, because "The Emperor has already won." Fifteen and a half stars, based on the movies the Hollywood critics give the Hollywood films that they're paid to advertise. Have a nice day, and remember, they can be stopped "by either removing the head or destroying the brain."

Rotten Tomatoes Shaun of the Dead site.

~MTB