E-Mail This Article to a Friend SHAUN OF THE DEAD

Another incarnation of the zombie flick, this time a romantic comedy that like Danny Boyle’s edgy 28 Days Later has a horde of living dead roaming the streets of London. This brood, however, are the slowest and most ineffectual yet, though they do get their opportunity to rip the innards from one poor bastard. Shaun (Simon Pegg) has lost his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), and his flat mate, Ed (Nick Frost), is a slob. The two men wake up one morning to discover a drunken woman in their yard. Needless to say, she’s not drunk, and Shaun, Ed, and Liz spend the rest of the film running from a throng of flesh-craving freaks. Director Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg (who wrote the script with Wright), and Nick Frost are all alums of the British comedy series Spaced. And as Ed, Frost, who’s reminiscent of a young John Candy, is the perfect foil to Pegg’s anal Shaun; their odd-couple bickering keeps the film alive even when it slogs in well-worn directions. Bill Nighy adds a spark as the detested stepdad, the ghoul make-up is George Romero–worthy, and the final zinger makes it all worthwhile. (99 minutes)