The first in a Series known as the Cornetto Trilogy (sometimes The Blood and Ice-cream trilogy) of wich Shaun of the Dead is perhaps the best known. The movie is a social satire and pokes fun at modern horror movies by making a realistic take on what a group of survivors would do in a zombie-apocalypse. "And why should I see it, because it has an Orangutan impersenation? Fuck-a-doodle doo" I hear you say. Because it's fucking hilarious!
The film opens at the Winchester where Shaun is having an argument with his girlfriend Liz, while we are being introduced to the other carachters; Shauns flatmate Ed, and David & Dianne, a couple who live with Liz. From there we get the now iconic credits that show extremely well that a zombie invasion might go by completely unnoticed in our modern society.
We then see Shauns daily life as an electronics-shop sales person. We do get some hints of the zombies happening, such as people being sick, glimpses of news reports and the military spreading around London. Shauns step dad, Phillip, comes to remind him about a visit to his parents house, and we can see that the tension between the two men really high. After work Shaun gets a phone call from Liz asking him if their anniversary dinner was okay, wich it isnt, so he has to go over to Liz's place to make it up, but the plan backfires badly and the couple ends up breaking up, leading to the hatred between Shaun and David getting set up
After a night of drinking and foreshadowing at the Winchester with Ed, Shaun decides to party around with him, leading to the reveal of Petes, the third flatmates, injury, he has been bitten by some crackheads, At this point we get some brilliant writing in the form of Pete telling sort his life out.
The next morning Shaun and Ed find a girl in the garden, realize that shits getting out of hand and come up with a plan to save themselves, Shaun's mom and Liz, allthewhile getting to a safe place and dealing with Phillip whose been bitten.
It all goes fuck-up but they manage to get to the winchester with David and Dianne tagging along.
Inside the pub things go good at first but thanks to David being a prick, they are confronted by half of London in zombie form. they manage to defend for a while until Shauns mum reveals that she's been bitten earlier, leading to one of the most awsome emotional scenes in a movie ever; David wants to shoot her but everyone else opposes causing a wild reservoir dogs reference to appear, ending in Shaun finishing the job himself. But due to David being a twat, He gets himself torn to pieces and lets the hoard of zombies inside to the pub. Dianne makes things worse by opening the door for twice the zombie fun! With only Shaun, Ed and Liz remainig, they defend off some of the zombies until Ed gets bitten by zombie-Pete who made his way to the pub.
With the three cornered behind the bar, they make their way to the cellar, but cant get the hatch open. In their desperation they think of using the last two shells in their rifle on themselves. Emotion ensues when they find a way to get out but are forced to leave the zombifying Ed behind. The military shoots up the pub and we cut to six months later when Liz and Shaun are back together and living together. We are shown via newsreports that the zombies are used as cheap labor and that the outbrreak has been contained. In the last shot we see that Shaun brought zombie-Ed into the shed in his backyard to play videogames with.
The Film was a huge success making four times its budget, and leaving people to quote it for years to come.
There are several runnug gags and repeated dialogue in the movie and it requiers several viewings to notice them all, so go see it again, and after you see it go see Hot Fuzz, as its the topic for the next part of this retrospective, coming next week. then after youve done that, go see the Worlds End, as its the last part. And after that, you should come back here to suggest another trilogy to do a retrospective off, and then you must cut down the mightiest tree in the forest, with a herring!
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