BEFORE: The third "cult film" of the week - I know this one has a loyal cult following because I've often seen people at Comic Con dressed like the lead character. And this may sound weird, but after watching this week's other cult classics, I'm anxious to get to films about zombies and vampires, because at least they tend to make some logical sense about how these creatures work and how to defeat them, right?
Linking from "Naked Lunch", there are a few different ways I can go - but let's link from Ian Holm through the "Hobbit" films to his co-Frodo, Martin Freeman, who's in this film somewhere. (Peter Weller would also link to Simon Pegg through "Star Trek Into Darkness", for one)
THE PLOT: A man decides to turn his life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Hot Fuzz" (Movie #167)
AFTER: Ah, definitely the most fun movie I've seen in a while. I don't think I'd programmed anything comic for the last month, so this sort of stood out in that respect. Again, I tend to not watch straight horror films, and the whole zombie genre is one I've intentionally ignored - I haven't seen "28 Days Later" or "Evil Dead" or "Dawn of the Dead" or anything like that. But I'm sure that the genre was just begging for a spoof.
Simon Pegg is best when he's playing these underdog characters, like he did in "Run, Fatboy, Run" - maybe not as much fun as he is in the "Star Trek" films, but he seems like a guy who knows how to have a good time, despite playing these hangdog loser types. Nothing seems to go right for him, we see him screw things up with his girlfriend, his job and his mother + stepfather, and meanwhile we get to see bits of news reports in the background that something more sinister is going on, possibly due to an infection or some kind of space meteor - we're never really sure, but it's not that important.
Once Shaun wakes up and goes through his morning routine, only to find the streets deserted except for the start of the zombie horde - the film sort of takes an odd left turn, which is fine because the opening bits were all just set-up material anyway. And then there's a bit of a learning curve while everyone figures out how to take the zombies down - namely cut off their heads or bash in their brains (geez, everybody knows THAT). But eventually the Zombie nation keeps growing and growing, and our heroes are forced to take shelter in the local pub - makes sense, since the place is probably stocked with food and drink, and used to dealing with unruly crowds. It's just too bad that the lights and the jukebox also attract the walking dead...
In fact there are some quite subtle jabs at not just zombie films (zombies are confused with tired and/or drunk people several times, and vice versa) but film language in general - an almost-complete sentence is formed from different TV clips as someone with a very short attention span is clicking around for information. Nice touch.
And I can sort of see how this would get better after multiple viewings - once you know what to look for and how comic the tone is, there's probably a bunch of inside jokes that you can pick up, which I probably missed.
But of course I'm left with a lot of questions about zombies, which I don't expect this film to answer seriously, and I doubt that even serious zombie films tackle. What do the zombies eat when they run out of human flesh? Do they eat each other, or animals? What's the life expectancy of a zombie, both with and without food (assuming it doesn't get its brain bashed in...)? How much damage can be done to a person eaten by a zombie until he just plain dies, and doesn't turn into a zombie himself? Clearly some more research into this non-real thing is required.
Also starring Simon Pegg (last seen in "Star Trek Into Darkness"), Nick Frost (last seen in "Paul"), Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis (last seen in "Nicholas Nickelby"), Bill Nighy (last seen in "Total Recall"), Dylan Moran, Peter Serafinowicz, Penelope Wilton (last seen in "The French Lieutenant's Woman"), with cameos from Rafe Spall (last seen in "Prometheus"), Matt Lucas (last heard in "Gnomeo and Juliet"), and Chris Martin from Coldplay.
RATING: 5 out of 10 shotgun shells
No comments:
Post a Comment