Theatrical Release Year: 2004
DVD Release Year: 2004
Director: Edgar Wright
Writers: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Tim Baggaley, Nicola Cunningham, Sonnell Dadral, Lucy Davis (II), Bill Nighy
Length: 100 minutes
Studio: Universal Studios
MPAA Rating:

It’s entirely possible the vinyl records are worth more than the lives they’re saving, but it sure is fun throwing them.

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is in a bit of a rut with no real life ambitions. He has stalled relationships with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), his best mate Ed (Nick Frost), and his mother Barbara (Penelope Wilton) as well as a stalled career at a local appliance store. Frustrated by this lack of ambition, Liz breaks up with Shaun when he commits the cardinal sin of forgetting to book a reservation for their third anniversary and offering to take her once again to his favorite pub, The Winchester. While Shaun’s relationship with Liz dissolves before his eyes the rest of the world around him happens to slowly become overrun by zombies.

Shaun’s tunnel vision to the utter destruction around him somehow saves him from the hands of the zombies too many times to count. Once he finally notices that zombies are taking over London and has a bit of fun with Ed taking a few of them down he decides he must set out on a crusade to save both Liz and his mother from the undead. And, where’s the best place to go to protect you and those you love from those indiscriminate flesh eaters? Why, the Winchester, of course!

This is, hands down, one of the funniest zombie movies of all time. A fantastic supporting cast, clever fight sequences, unique camera angles, and perfectly understated zombie-to-regular-life comparisons (aren’t we all just drooling drones? yup!) make Pegg and Wright’s film a cult classic.

Special Features

Zombie Gallery: A photo collection of the undead.
TV Bits: Music videos from the film soundtrack.
Trailer: The US theatrical trailer for the film.
Missing Bits:
Funky Pete - A cleaned up version of Pete’s dialog when he’s woken up at 4:00am
The Man Who Should Be Shaun - Simon Pegg using a silly voice for his character
Plot Holes - Answering your questions about what happened to characters during parts of the film
Outtakes - The goofy bits — yaaaaaay!
Extended Bits - Fifteen (15) extended scenes… Wow!
Raw Meat - A proverbial meat pie of the leftover bits:
Simon Pegg’s Video Diary - A behind-the-scenes montage of the film set.
Casting Tapes - Some seriously hilarious versions of my favorite scenes are shown, plus strange things are done with fruit. That’s always funny!
Edgar and Simon’s Flip Chart - The detailed plan of the movie in word form. Booooring! (Skip it.)
SFX Comparison - Very cool footage of how Mary gets that pipe through her stomach, and consequently a hole through her entire mid-section, using green screen and splicing.
Make-Up Tests - Zombie walkers in full costume set to music, including Simon Pegg in full zombie get-up and side-by-side comparisons of CGI zombie eyes versus color contacts (freaky!).
EPK Featurette - A description of the film is given, including an in-depth look at the relationship between Shaun and Ed.

Can we say awesome special features? AWESOME SPECIAL FEATURES! (I knew we could.)

Buttery’s Rating:

Recommendations

A nice, chewy Guinness really hits the spot when holding down the Winchester fort.

Bacon candy must be consumed while fighting zombies. Mmmm, zombie bacon…

Popularity: 14% [?]