I saw Shaun of The Dead today during its rerelease in theaters. It’s a movie I haven’t seen in over a decade so it was fun to revisit it, especially in a theater with all the fun that entails. The movie’s still great, loads of fun and you can see so many of the markers of Edgar Wright’s later movies, some of them in nascent forms. It’s able to mash up the romcom and zombie genres so well it looks effortless and finds genuine pathos amid the comedy of it all. Watching it on this side of thirty, I’m also struck by how darn relatable it is.
Which, alright, zombie movie, but hear me out. Shaun, at the start of the movie, is a bit of a slacker but mostly just stuck at a dead end where he’s trying to get by and not really sure how. He’s in a not-entirely-unpleasant stasis, one that’s not awful, but certainly one where if he stays in it much longer his life will probably combust. The whole zombie outbreak happens on the day he’s going to try and get his act together, and the movie transposes that personal quandary onto the heightened stakes of a zombified world.
Throughout it all, though, Shaun remains, well, Shaun. A guy trying really hard to do his best even if he’s not entirely sure what it is and getting real stressed out. It all feels oddly grounded, helped in part by the world itself having those markers of that point in your life when you’re trying to get stuff in order. He has roommates, as does his girlfriend, and they all live in familiar crappy apartments that are a mishmash of the people living there. His job’s a bummer but he’s at least got one. Everyone’s trying, no one’s really succeeding too well, but hey, they’re trying. Then there’s that whole zombie apocalypse thing that exacerbates it all and gives him a chance to grow.
Look, a genre movie using its tropes to examine a character’s personal life in a heightened world is nothing new — heck, it’s one reason I love science fiction so dang much. What makes Shaun of The Dead so fantastic is that it starts with such a — if not grounded then — relatable basis. Shaun’s problems are so mundane it instantly makes you feel for the guy even as the world collapses. Or maybe that’s just the effect of watching the movie when you’re that much closer to the character’s age.
Essays, Not Rants! 