Shaun of the Dead is a 2003 horror-comedy film directed by Edgar Wright, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It is the first of the Cornetto Trilogy and is widely regarded to be one of the greatest horror comedies of all time. The film followed 29-year-old nobody Shaun (Pegg), who is working a dead-end job and was recently dumped by his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield). When he and his slacker best friend Ed (Frost) are faced with a zombie apocalypse, they pull together a ragtag group of family members and friends and take refuge in a pub, hoping for it all to blow over. To go into the comedic strengths of this film would be redundant at this point. It is one of the smartest, most dynamic and insanely well-written and acted entries into the subgenre. In short, it's an insanely fun watch and a staple of any Halloween movie marathon. However, in the discussion of this movie, what is overlooked is how well it works as a horror film. Not necessarily in its jump scares or gore, though the practical effects are incredibly good, but in its empathy you feel for characters put in a terrifying situation.
There are a lot of hot takes and talking points on zombie movies and their value, arguments on how zombies aren't scary, or are too played out. We live in a post-Call of Duty: Zombies, post-The Walking Dead, post-World War Z World. With incredibly competent human protagonists, the living dead have been relegated to shambling targets, the bottom tier of a video game rogue's gallery; slow, unthinking, easily dispatched with a powerful blow to the head. This is why zombie films so easily cross over into the action and comedy realms. The real danger, if it's not the zombies' numbers advantage, is the other humans that treat the apocalypse as their excuse to make the world their playground.
However, those numbers can overwhelm terrifyingly, and as much as we hope we'll be like the Ricks and Daryls of this world, it is more likely that we'll be the Shauns and Eds.
'Shaun of the Dead's Horror Comes From Empathy
The true horror of Shaun of the Dead comes from a place of empathy, watching this group of normal people being thrust into an outlandish and horrific situation, being stuck in a pub surrounded by hordes of zombies, as they struggle to pull it together and survive despite personal conflicts between them. While there are funny scenes of zombies being defeated by pool cues, or rejected vinyl records, it becomes clear by the time they enter the Winchester they're in way over their heads. They, like many of us, have no combat experience, no provisions in place for a disaster situation, natural or supernatural, and were caught off guard by a situation none of them would've imagined.
Shaun of the Dead, up until the end when the military steps in and prevents a full-blown Armageddon, is a bleak movie because of the empathy we feel for the characters. Incredibly difficult decisions have to be made throughout the film, and poor choices fueled by emotion and fresh trauma are also made. All the characters know each other, and have varying degrees of emotional baggage, which influences the direction they take in this situation and their reactions to it. There is always going to be a strong reaction to people struggling to survive in a horror movie, fighting off hordes of monsters before horrifically succumbing to them, but in Shaun of the Dead it is quality over quantity. There is real time given to the few human deaths in the movie, from the tense build-up to the reaction of the loss, so said loss can really sink in with the audience. This character is dead, and they were more than a faceless victim, but a person with a story, and relationships, and unresolved conflicts that the others are left with.
The Scariest Scene is Also the Most Moving
The scariest scene by far is when Shaun has to make the hardest call of all after his own mother is bitten. The film establishes Barbara (Penelope Wilton) as a kind person who loves unconditionally, and we're shown Shaun's devotion to her despite his difficulties with his stepfather (Bill Nighy). She is the first person Shaun comes to rescue, but in the end he fails to prevent her from getting bitten, and has to do the worst thing a son could imagine. This is the kind of thing that scares you as you're driving home from the cinema, your mind going to the troubling conundrum: Could you shoot a loved one? You wouldn't want to, even if it was between that and your brains being eaten. It's something that will haunt you for the rest of your life. It's a decision that's seen as haunting, too, being the boiling point of the interpersonal conflict between all those trapped in the bar. There is clearly a lot of regret and despair Shaun has to work through in a short amount of time. It's shown earlier in the film that despite loving his mother, he hadn't shown it in a while, and he is living with something we all fear: Just having to deal with that.
We all have our plans for the zombie apocalypse, as a thought exercise. Where we would go, who would be a part of our survival team, what weapons would we have on hand that we can use the most efficiently. Maybe you'll camp out in the wilderness, or hunker down at a local pub and wait for it all to blow over, but as reality and recent global emergencies have shown, it's not that simple. No one should feel bad or useless for not immediately being able to step up during an emergency, and while it is generally helpful in life to learn some basic survival skills like First Aid, fighting hordes of the undead would not be as easy as it is in a video game. It's likely the person reading this, and that includes the writer, would be totally useless in Shaun and Ed's shoes. Shaun of the Dead is a brilliant movie because they did not make a complete joke out of the entire situation, the characters, writing and cinematography is humorous, but the scenario isn't. Z-Day ends swiftly, but it leaves so much destruction in its wake. People can be heroic, and each member of the cast has their badass moments, but at the end of the day, they're all just regular people, unprepared and rather incompetent.
That incompetence is not only hilarious for us to watch, but terrifying for us to think about.