Shaun of the Dead (2004): How the zombie comedy borrowed a TV plot and became so much more

“Any zombies out there?”

Looking for a good zom-com? When we came up with our list of Top 13 Zombie Comedy Movies, we totally had to include the 2004 zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead. A man’s uneventful life is disrupted by the zombie apocalypse.

Shaun of the Dead was written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg—Wright also directed the film, and Pegg starred in it. The film aso stars Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy, and Penelope Wilton.

Novelist Stephen King called Shaun of the Dead is “a 10 on the fun meter and destined to be a cult classic” and Newsweek calls it “a bloody hoot!”

Watch the video playlist below to see the official trailer, a clip of Pegg’s character being oblivious to the zombies, plus an assortment of glimpses at the process behind making of the film.

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Monster Complex playlist: Shaun of the Dead (2004)


When writing Shaun of the Dead, Pegg and Wright pulled from some ideas they had during their TV show Spaced, in particular the episode where Pegg’s slacker character hallucinates a zombie invasion.

Shaun of the Dead references the Dead films directed by George A. Romero.

The 2004 zombie comedy movie Shaun of the Dead was the first installment in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, followed by the 2007 cop action comedy Hot Fuzz and the 2013 apocalyptic sci-fi comedy The World’s End (which I absolutely loved).


Find more about SHAUN OF THE DEAD online


Want more articles about zombie fiction? Click on our Zombies category, with articles about living-dead books, movies, TV shows, comic books, and more!



Chris Well

Chris Well been a writer pretty much his entire life. (Well, since his childhood.) Over the years, he has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio, and books. He now is the chief of the website Monster Complex, celebrating monster stories in lit and pop culture. He also writes horror comedy fiction that embraces Universal Monsters, 1960s sitcoms, 1980s action movies, and the X-Files.

https://chriswell.substack.com/
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