Shaun of the Dead

Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead
	Film poster for Shaun of the Dead.
Directed by	Edgar Wright
Written by	Simon Pegg; Edgar Wright
Produced by	Nira Park
Starring	Simon Pegg; Kate Ashfield; Nick Frost; Lucy Davis; Dylan Moran
Distributed by	United International Pictures (UK); Focus Features (USA)
Release dates	April 9, 2004 (UK); September 24, 2004 (USA)
Running time	99 min.
Language	English
Budget	$4,000,000 (est.)

Shaun of the Dead is a zombie-themed romantic comedy, or "rom zom com" as it dubs itself, released in 2004 (9 April in the United Kingdom, 24 September in the United States). It was written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, directed by Edgar Wright, and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Despite the title—a pun on George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead and the name of the lead character—it is not a horror-spoof in the style of the Scary Movie films. It is better understood an affectionate tribute to the genre of zombie horror, with many background references to classic zombie films. Shaun focuses on the common men who simply keep acting like they always do throughout the entire ordeal, rather than focusing on the more typical, heroic characters.

The production was filmed entirely in London, primarily at Ealing Studios, and involved production companies Working Title Films and StudioCanal.

In its opening weekend in the US, Shaun earned US$3.3M, taking 8th place at the box office despite a limited release to only 607 theatres (compared to the usual 2000-3000 for other top 10 entries). In the UK it took in £1.6M at 307 cinemas on its opening weekend and netted £6.4M by mid-May.

In 2004 the magazine Total Film named Shaun of the Dead the 49th greatest British film of all time.

In 2005, it was rated as the 3rd greatest comedy film of all time in a Channel 4 poll. [1]

In 2006, the National Entertainment Collectibles Association announced that they would be producing Action Figures based on the film as part of their Cult Classics line that features fan favorite characters from various genre films.

Principal Cast

Actor	Role
Simon Pegg	Shaun
Nick Frost	Ed
Kate Ashfield	Liz
Dylan Moran	David
Lucy Davis	Dianne
Peter Serafinowicz	Pete
Bill Nighy	Phillip
Penelope Wilton	Barbara
Jessica Stevenson	Yvonne

Plot

Template:Spoiler Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a dissatisfied appliance salesman trapped in a dull rut in his life, largely due to the negative influence of his lazy, shabby (and occasionally cannabis-dealing) best friend and flatmate Ed (Nick Frost) while his other, much more successful flatmate Pete tries to talk Shaun into organizing his life. His job is dull and his social life largely consists of playing PlayStation 2 games (namely, TimeSplitters 2) with Ed and going to his local pub, the Winchester, with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), who is consequently dissatisfied with the lack of spice in their relationship. After he forgets to book a reservation somewhere else for himself and Liz and feebly offers to take her to the Winchester again, she dumps him. An attempted reconciliation by Shaun goes terribly awry, so he goes to the Winchester with Ed and drowns his sorrows in beer. Back at their flat Shaun and Ed's party is crashed by an angry Pete, who has to work on Sunday. After Pete yells at Shaun, berating him for wasting his time with Ed, Shaun realizes that his life needs a serious overhaul.

Unfortunately for him, this realization about his life comes at the same time that London and the rest of England is swamped by a sudden zombie outbreak, as the recently dead return to life and begin to attack the living. As society breaks down, Shaun takes charge and it's up to him to lead Ed and Liz, his beloved mother Barbara (Penelope Wilton), his hated stepfather Phillip (Bill Nighy), and Liz's best friend Dianne (Lucy Davis) and her condescending boyfriend David (Dylan Moran) to safety and prevent them from becoming a tasty snack for the walking undead.

After dispatching a few intruding zombies at their flat and formulating a plan to take shelter at the Winchester and "wait for all this to blow over" Shaun and Ed decide to first kill the bitten Phillip and pick up Barbara, then pick up Liz, Dianne, and David and head for their favorite pub. They borrow Pete's car, after discovering that the zombified Pete (who was bitten the night before, assuming his attacker to be a 'crackhead') is in no condition to use it. Armed with a cricket bat and a shovel respectively, Shaun and Ed make it to Phillip and Barbara's house only to discover Phillip is not zombified yet, throwing a wrench into Shaun's plan. After Shaun and Barbara argue about Phillip, Shaun agrees to take Phillip with them. Before they can get into Phillip's car (Ed drove Pete's car into a telephone pole so he would be able to drive the Jaguar), Phillip is bitten badly in the neck by approaching zombies.

With Ed (who is becoming increasingly reckless and thrill-seeking, disregarding the safety of the others) driving, Shaun, Barbara, and the ailing Phillip drive to Liz's place, and Shaun convinces Liz, Dianne, and David to leave their flat and join them. While in the car, Phillip makes peace with Shaun just before dying. Ed pulls over for Shaun, right as Phillip reawakens as a zombie. The others leave zombie Phillip locked in the car and continue to the Winchester on foot.

After a meeting with Yvonne, an incident in which Barbara is attacked by a zombie, and a failed shortcut by Shaun, the group reaches the Winchester - which is unfortunately surrounded by zombies. Dianne puts her acting skills to use and teaches everyone how to do the 'zombie walk' and through it they fool the zombies and make it to the Winchester door. When Ed's cell phone rings and he starts talking - and alerting the zombies of their presence - Shaun knocks the phone out of his hand and yells at him for being a negative influence and being ungrateful for all that Shaun has done for him, and decides that for once Ed is not going to mess everything up. Unfortunately, his soul searching was conducted at the top of his voice and has thus attracted the attention of seventy very hungry zombies. David breaks a window and everyone climbs in, save for Shaun who lures the zombies away to stop them from following the others into the Winchester.

In the Winchester, everyone is worried about Shaun until he comes back, bragging to David that he gave the zombies the slip ("They're not all that") and that he came in through the back door that he had been trying to tell them about. Shaun and his friends resign themselves to sitting around and eating peanuts until they discover that the zombies followed Shaun, and want to get into the pub. A problem surfaces when John, the pub keeper, approaches them by surprise as a zombie. As Shaun, Liz, and Ed beat at the confused zombie with pool sticks, David runs to the back in time to see the zombies crash through the back door while Dianne takes Barbara off to a corner out of harm's way. Ed tosses Shaun the rifle under the bar, which turns out to be real just as Ed suspected. With the use of it Shaun dispatches zombie John. The group then prepares to face the zombies who, as Dianne puts it, "definitely want to come in!".

While Shaun fires at the zombies who try to come through the windows and Ed, Dianne, and David reload for him, Liz talks to Barbara and finds out she was bitten when she was attacked before they got to the Winchester. While David takes over shooting, Shaun, Ed, and Dianne surround Barbara. Barbara dies in Shaun's arms, but his grieving is cut short when David points the rifle at her and tells Shaun to get out of the way. A struggle ensues for the gun, and David decides he's going to leave. Liz talks him out of it, Shaun and David argue, and David finally comes to terms with the fact that he's in love with Liz and Dianne was there to pick up the pieces after Liz knocked him back in college. David calms down and is about to apologize to Shaun when zombies break the window behind him and grab his torso. Shaun, Liz, and Dianne try to hold him by his legs while Ed tries to get a shot with the rifle, and they watch as hungry zombies devour him. Dianne, upon seeing David die, seizes David's severed leg and opens the door. She yells to a now deceased David that she is coming, and rushes into the swarm of zombies (the DVD extras tell us that she survived, hiding in a tree and living off of David's leg until deciding that it was safe to come down).

Shaun grabs the rifle and fires at oncoming zombies while Liz grabs a table and holds a group of them back, while Ed improvises a Molotov cocktail. Before he can fire it, zombies grab him, and zombie Pete returns and bites Ed. With a yell of "I SAID LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Shaun finishes off Pete by blowing his head off with the rifle. Shaun and Liz duck behind the bar and set it on fire - leaving the bullets and the zombies behind (though the bullets do go haywire and take care of a few zombies). When the still-alive-but-bitten Ed jumps behind the bar, the three survivors take shelter in the cellar of the pub, with the zombies trying to break the door open.

When the elevator to the street apparently doesn't seem to work, Shaun breaks down, claiming he's incapable of doing anything and saying he couldn't save his friends. Liz comforts him saying that he tried. Shaun tries the elevator again and it works. Before he and Liz go up into the street to freedom, Shaun makes his peace with Ed, leaving him with a cigarette and the rifle, which has two shells left.

Once the elevator brings them back up to the street, Shaun and Liz find themselves surrounded by zombies. As they prepare to fight a losing battle, they are suddenly saved by the timely intervention of the army, who proceed to massacre the undead. Yvonne gets out of one of the trucks and meets them, brandishing a golf club and offers to take them with her. As they walk away the audience sees Shaun and Liz holding hands.

Cut to six months later. Liz is watching TV in Shaun's newly cleaned and spruced up flat about the events of "Z-Day" and Shaun comes down and greets Liz. Together they agree to have a fun day, a testament to how their relationship has the spice Liz wanted. At the end of the movie we find out that Shaun is keeping zombie Ed in the shed in chains to play PlayStation games with him (a reference to Pete's line "You wanna live like an animal, go live in the shed, you thick fuck!.").

Characters

Shaun: The central character. Living an aimless life and stuck in a dead end job, he has issues with his mum Barbara, his stepdad Phillip and his girlfriend Liz. Shaun aims to set things right, however, Shaun also has to cope with the dead rising from their graves.

Ed: Shaun's best friend ever since their childhood. He has been unemployed and living on the sofa of Shaun and Pete for awhile. Sofa-bound, he spends most of his life eating, drinking and playing video games. It is mostly because of him that Shaun spends most of his life in the Winchester. He is a part time pot dealer. He has a thing for Shaun's mum.

Liz: Shaun's girlfriend. She has waited on him, hoping to spend a night somewhere other than the Winchester for their three year anniversary. Unfortunately, Shaun's irresponsibility gets in the way of things as he forgets to make reservations, and Liz dumps him.

David: One of Liz's flatmates and Dianne's boyfriend. It is evident to everyone but himself that David is infatuated with Liz. As such, he resents Shaun with a passion and delights in undermining him at every opportunity. Is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is and is not nearly as good of a leader as he thinks he is.

Dianne: David's girlfriend who has known Liz since school. According to Liz she is described by Shaun as a failed actress (although Shaun claims that he never described her as such), Dianne has come to terms with the fact that her boyfriend is in love with someone else.

Pete: Shaun and Ed's flatmate, and from what we can see he is much more successful than his lazy flatmates. Increasingly unhappy with Ed's antics. Often called "Prick" by Ed.

Phillip: Shaun's step-father. Not on good terms with Shaun. However, later in the film, he reveals that he only wanted for Shaun to have somebody strong to look up to as a father.

Barbara: Shaun's mother. A kind woman who cares for Shaun and is trying to convince him to accept Phillip as his Dad.

Yvonne: Shaun's friend. During the movie she leads a group of people attempting to escape the zombies that bear a very strong resemblance to Shaun's group. Their fates (excepting Yvonne, who hooks up with soldiers) are unknown.

Characters' fates

Template:Spoiler

Only four characters, three of which were members of Shaun's party, survive.

Pete, Shaun and Ed's flatmate, is the first from the group to be zombified. He is bitten on his way back from work which he originally dismissed as muggers, and by the next morning he has died and is left a zombie which inconveniently happens when he's stark naked in the bathtub for a shower. He later returns to attack Ed in the Winchester, and Shaun is forced to kill him by shooting him in the eye.

Phillip is bitten, but does not immediately turn into a zombie. While going out to the car with Shaun and Barbara, he is bitten in the neck by another zombie. After reconciling with Shaun in the car, he passes away and becomes one of the undead. The only thing that's left of his former self's personality is his aversion to loud music.

Barbara, Shaun's mother, is bitten and left bleeding at the wrist after an encounter with a zombie on her way to the Winchester. Not wanting to worry Shaun, she doesn't say anything until it's too late. The prospect of Shaun shooting his zombified mother and David's coldness on the matter leads to a conflict between the two.

After a heated confrontation with Shaun, David is about to apologize for his behavior when he gets too close to a window that is broken by the zombies, and he is grabbed, taken by the crowd, and, despite the best efforts of the other members of Shaun's party, disemboweled, dismembered and decapitated, in roughly the order listed. This can be seen as a tribute to a similar scene from Day of the Dead.

Following the loss of her boyfriend, Dianne grabs one of his legs and enters the crowd of zombies, apparently intent on killing as many as she can. Whilst the film itself seems to imply that she dies, the "Plot Holes" feature on the DVD reveals that she actually survived; she fights her way through the horde and climbs a tree, subsisting off David's leg for a few days until it appears to be safe. She goes to live with her aunt in Birmingham and "remains in Christmas-card-contact with Shaun and Liz".

Ed is attacked and badly bitten by Pete and John's "trophy wife". When Shaun and Liz leave the Winchester, they leave him behind with the gun and two bullets. He is able to fend off the zombies, but bleeds to death and becomes a zombie himself. Shaun later retrieves him and locks him in his shed so he can have a buddy to play video games with. It is mentioned by a news reporter in the final scene that the zombies appear to retain their primal instincts, implying that playing video games has become instinct for Ed.

Shaun and Liz are rescued when the British Army arrives outside of the Winchester and starts shooting dead the zombies. Yvonne, Shaun's friend, is also rescued and escapes with them.

It is noted on the DVD that the characters names rhyme with their fates at the end of the film:

Shaun: Reborn
Ed: Dead (or Edward becomes "the zed word")
Liz: Lives
Dave (David): Grave
Di (Diana): Dies (as it would appear she had died had it not been for the DVD "Plot Holes" feature)
Barbara: Cadaver
Phil (Phillip): Killed
Pete: Eat (Eaten)
Yvonne: Moves On

Repitition in the Script

The repetitive nature of the scenes and dialog in the film lend it towards repeat viewings; one can watch the movie several times and still not "catch" everything.

At the beginning of the film, when Shaun can be seen at work, his red pen leaks in his shirt pocket and his co-workers observe, "You've got red on you," Afterwards, Shaun arrives home where Ed notices the red ink and again comments, "You've got red on you,". Further in the film, after dispatching of numerous zombies on the way to his Mum's house, he is splattered with blood and his Mum tries to wipe it off, saying, "You've got red on you,".
Ed uses the expletive phrase "Oh, cock it!" to curse a pinball machine. Later in the movie, when he and Shaun try to get away in Pete's car and he triggers the alarm he yells "Oh, cock it!". Later, when Shaun cannot operate the Winchester rifle, David declares that it should have its safety released, and Ed shakes his head and snaps "Oh, cock it!"
During the scene where the group is shooting at zombies attempting to break into the Winchester, Shaun and Ed essentially re-enact an earlier scene, where their dialog ("Top left", "Reload", "I'm on it", and "Nice shot") directly mirrors their dialog over how Ed plays Timesplitters 2.
When Pete is in the throes of the infamous scene where he uses the word "fuck" over and over, he screams at Ed: "You wanna live like an animal?! Go live in the shed, you thick fuck!" This is actually prophetic, as Ed's ultimate fate is to become a zombie and live in the shed, playing video games.
In one scene, Shaun confesses that an impressive quote he tosses off in conversation was something he read off a beer mat. Liz promises, "I won't say anything" about it. Later, Liz confesses that she has taken up smoking again in response to the end of the world, and Shaun replies "I won't say anything."
When Shaun is trying to drown his sorrows in drinking, the song "If You Leave Me Now" comes on the jukebox. When Ed asks what on Earth has turned on their juke, Shaun sobs, "It's on random!" Ed groans, "Oh, for fuck's sake!" Later in the movie, when the jukebox shorts and suddenly begins playing Don't Stop Me Now, Shaun again observes "It's on random", although Liz is the one to cry out "Oh, for fuck's sake!"
Shaun's morning routines are directly repeated on the two days that the film takes place. All of the (nonspeaking) people he sees on the first day are either corpses, zombies or running from the zombies on the second day, and the streets are deserted, trashed and omniously silent. Shaun remains oblivious to the world around him in both scenes, even though he appears to slip on some blood in the store while failing to notice the bloody hand mark on the glass door of the refrigerator.
During the drinking scene, Ed unknowingly describes the events of Z-Day using drinking terminology. He says: "We'll have a Bloody Mary first thing, have a bite at the King's Head, a couple at the Little Princess, then BAM! Stagger back here for shots!" The first zombie they fight is the cashier named Mary; they then go to Shaun's mother and step-dad's house (Phillip has been bitten), they then pick up Dianne and Liz (couple at the Little Princess), they then pretend to be zombies (stagger) back to the Winchester and end up shooting the zombies.
When Shaun first runs into Yvonne after he bought the flowers for his mum, she asks him how he's doing and he replys, "Surviving." That conversation is repeated when they bump into each other's identical groups and at the end when Yvonne and the army find Shaun and Liz.

Trivia

The early working title for the film was Tea Time of the Dead.
According to the DVD Trivia track, many of the zombie extras were recruited off fan forums for Spaced or were residents who saw the filming and asked to if they could somehow be involved (the zombies in the scene where Ed is tearing down a suburban street in Philip's Jaguar were mainly residents of that street).
The cast and crew of 16 Days were mostly recruited from the set of the film.
The film was originally inspired by a short sequence in the sitcom Spaced (also directed by Edgar Wright), in which Tim (Simon Pegg) blasted several zombies with a shotgun in a Resident Evil fantasy induced by speed and Twiglets.
In keeping with Pegg and Wright's adoration of the genre and films in general there are many in-jokes and references to other films including character names, scenes and snippets of dialogue.
The film only received a 15 certificate in the UK despite the gore, violence, the use of the word fuck some 77 times in 99 minutes, one instance of the word cunt, and one of the word nigga.
It is never explained what causes the zombie plague, but hints throughout the film suggest various causes, including a satellite burning up in the atmosphere, a chemical spill and genetically modified crops (most are explanations used in other zombie films). As in the original Dawn of the Dead, the zombies' true origins are never revealed, though a news broadcast at the end of the film is heard debunking the theory of a virus transmitted by "rage-infected monkeys" (a reference to 28 Days Later).
George A. Romero, creator of the films that this movie lampoons, was so impressed with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's work that he asked them to appear in Land of the Dead, the fourth part of his "Dead" series, in cameo. Pegg and Wright insisted on being zombies rather than the slightly more noticeable roles that were originally offered (as revealed in DVD interview).
Many details (the landlord's names, the quiz, the "Breville out back") of the Winchester are based on the Shepherds, a real pub once frequented by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (and mentioned briefly in the film). The pair were regular attendees of the Shepherds' quiz night, under the team name Q.W.A or Quizzers With Attitude (also briefly mentioned in the film).
At the Winchester, Shaun's line "He's not my boyfriend - Thanks babe." was also spoken in the TV series Spaced to the main character's best friend Mike, who is also played by Nick Frost. According to Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright on the DVD commentary, this was unintentional - both had simply forgotten that they had used this joke previously in Spaced when writing the movie.
The oft-used phrase "How's that for a slice of fried gold?" is another reference to Spaced.
All of the people who appear on television when Shaun flips through the channels are "playing" their actual jobs--i.e., the newscasters are actual newscasters on British TV.
In the first TV-channel scene, a pop music show, Channel 4's T4, begins to introduce the band Coldplay. In the second, at the end of the film, the same music show host, Vernon Kay, is "dead excited" to once again introduce Coldplay--this time, as celebrity endorsers for the charity group "ZombAid". Chris Martin of Coldplay also plays a zombie.
The group refers to the fact that a patron of the Winchester, Big Al, "says that dogs can't look up". This is another reference to Spaced, where Nick Frost claimed that they had difficulty in shooting a certain scene because it was physically impossible for dogs to look up.
In the Mexican stand-off scene, Shaun yells "Don't point that gun at my Mum!" In a very similar scene from Resevoir Dogs, one of the characters screams "Don't point that gun at my Dad!"
The bandaging on Shaun's head after getting hit with the dart is a tribute to Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter.

Horror references

Shaun gets to be manager for a day at his dead end job of a salesmen because the actual manager, Ash, is feeling "under the weather", a direct reference to Ash of The Evil Dead fame.
Shaun's Mother's name is "Barbara", the name of the main female character of Night of the Living Dead. When Shaun calls her at the outbreak of the zombie attacks to make sure that she is all right, Ed calls out, "We're coming to get you Barbara!" This is a direct reference to the most famous line of Night of the Living Dead ("They're coming to get you Barbara!"). In another reference to the same film, Ed uses the word "zombie", Shaun tells him not to use the "Z-Word", citing "It's ridiculous". In Night of the Living Dead, the word zombie is never used (they are referred to as ghouls).
Most of the locations in the film are references to horror films. The Winchester takes its name from the Winchester lever-action rifle, which was used in Night of the Living Dead. Shaun's place of employment, Foree Electronics, was named after Ken Foree from Dawn of the Dead. The restaurant "that does all the fish" is named Fulchi's, a reference to Italian horror director Lucio Fulci. A pizza restaurant that makes background appearances in the movie is Bub's Pizza, and is an homage to the zombie protagonist of Day of the Dead. Mary the zombie works at Landis Supermarket, a nod to John Landis, the director of An American Werewolf in London.
The part in the film when Shaun realizes that he left his mother without noticing, and then jumps on a trampoline over a fence to save her is a direct reference to the classic video game Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
Features music from Dawn of the Dead including the mall music, as well as a track from the Goblin score.
On Shaun's way to the shop early in the film, a radio broadcast talks about a satellite crashing in the South-east of England. This is another nod to Night of the Living Dead, where the zombified state of the humans was said to be caused by the radiation from a fallen satellite.
The news reporters in Shaun of the Dead use the same dialogue as their counterparts in Dawn of the Dead during their reading of the local news.
Early in the film, while Shaun is on a bus, the track Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation can be heard.
When Shaun realizes that Pete is a zombie, his lines trail off, ending with a half-whispered "... join us." This is another reference to The Evil Dead, where the zombie/demons were known for bellowing "Join us!" at their human victims.
At the end of the film, the newsman kills the rumor that the zombie plague was started from rage-infected monkeys, which is a direct reference to 28 Days Later.

External links