I like horror flicks but I’m picky. Formulaic slashers bore me; I think I may be getting too old to enjoy them properly. My more non-typical favorites include 28 Days Later (it-could-really-happen apocalyptic horror!) and Requiem for a Dream (descent-into-drug-addled-despair horror!). I don’t know if either of those are considered horror movies, but I say they are because both make me anxious and sweat profusely. And in my heart is reserved a special space for that rarest of the breed: the horror-comedy. After the The Evil Dead trilogy, I didn’t think I’d be seeing the likes of such a combo meal again, until I watched Shaun of the Dead on DVD tonight.
Not only is it great because it directly references the Evil Dead (and George Romero’s oeuvre) in everything from whip-pans, to an S-Mart style nametag, to a throwaway line about a guy named Ash; it’s also great because it’s British. Plus 10! You could write a dissertation about its jabs at staid limey social mores—the doldrums of the working-class, the stoic mother, the starchy intellectual—but it’s just a bunch of kick ass fun as Shaun (Simon Pegg and his dopey, flatulent friend (Nick Frost) fend off the living dead with wit, a cricket bat, Prince records and shotgun skills learned from video games.