Shaun of the Dead, the first part of The Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, went a very long way in helping the careers of actor/writer Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and director/writer Edgar Wright.  And for good reason!

After transferring many of my movies to the cloud, the family and I were sitting around, wondering what to see over the weekend and everyone wanted a comedy.  I suggested they give this film a try, though to be honest outside of the film’s central plot (working shlub loses girlfriend and tries to win her back during the zombie apocalypse… something it takes this dimwitted -though kindly- soul a good while to figure out is happening) I didn’t recall all that much about it.

This is usually not a good sign and I feared the film might not be all that good…at least for them.

My memory of the other two films in the Cornetto trilogy, 2007’s Hot Fuzz and 2013’s The World’s End were fresher.  I could even recall more regarding the non-Cornetto film Paul, which also featured Pegg and Frost, than SotD.

So, naturally, the film turned out to be not all that great, right?

Wrong.

My lack of memory might be related to the fact that this was my first exposure to the works of Pegg/Frost/Wright and I might have been more focused on the zombie and apocalypse stuff rather than what actually “made” the film: the characters and their interactions.  Either that or I was distracted during that showing and wasn’t paying all that much attention.

Regardless, shame on me because SotD is an absolute delight and as much as I enjoyed both Hot Fuzz and The World’s End (Hot Fuzz a lot more than The World’s End), SotD is to my eyes clearly the best of the Cornetto trilogy.

Then again, it is the movie that features the most interesting subject matter for this particular brand of parody.  Bear in mind, too, that the whole zombie apocalypse concept, so common now, wasn’t quite that common back in 2004.  In that year we had the release of the Dawn of the Dead remake and it would be six years before Walking Dead showed up on TV.

So the film was an early example of the popular zombie genre and the subject of its parody/humor was mostly a nod to the much smaller base of zombie fanatics who loved the George Romero “Dead” trilogy.

In the character of Shaun, Simon Pegg is a riot.  He’s presented as a kindly bloke who likes the simple things in life: Frequenting his favorite pub, hanging out with his slacker flatmate Ed (Nick Frost), staying as far away from his stepfather as he can, working a dead-end electronics job, and trying his best to keep the flame going with his increasingly turned off girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield).

But life proves too complicated for Shaun and when he screws up a dinner date with Liz and, to make matters worse, tries to patch things up in a very awkward and obvious way with flowers meant for someone else, Liz ditches Shaun and his life comes crashing down…both literally and figuratively.

So focused is Shaun on his personal problems that he doesn’t notice all the strange things -both small and large- going on around him, hints that the zombie apocalypse is well underway.  It isn’t until he’s quite literally face to face with a zombie that he realizes the danger everyone is in and then decides to go into action.  Oh, and win his girlfriend’s heart back.

SotD is at its best in the early going when that zombie apocalypse is happening and Shaun just misses realizing this is the case.  The jokes during this section of the film are both in your face and subtle, ranging from Shaun impatiently changing the channels of his TV just as they’re about to talk of the apocalypse to -my favorite- what happens just after he grabs that drink the second time he goes to the convenience store while not noticing the bloody handprints on the refrigeration unit.

SotD is also a very (pardon the pun) “meaty” comedy.  Stuff is constantly happening and it is clear a great deal of effort was put into making this screenplay.

Do I recommend the film?

If you can’t tell by now, you weren’t paying attention.

By the way, the movie is much better than this pretty lame trailer makes it seem.