SHAUN OF THE DEAD
This will be incredibly difficult to believe but on the wall of my first share house bedroom I hung a poster of Shaun of the Dead, alongside a poster for Scooby Doo and across the room from a poster of Lost In Translation. If that doesn’t paint a perfect picture of what I was like at that age then I have no more brushes. This will also be impossible to believe but I assure you it is true, I made out with VERY FEW people in front of those posters.
The Edgar Wright/Jessica Stevenson/Simon Pegg series Spaced meant an awful lot to me when I was a teenager. I remember taping it, and watching it over and over, and the excitement I felt for the arrival of Shaun of the Dead was palpable. To twenty-one-year-old me, Shaun of the Dead was perfect. Again, I’m sure these things will be hard to believe about a Millennial dork who didn’t play sports in high school and who is currently writing a newsletter about horror movies.
My feelings these days about Edgar Wright and especially about Simon Pegg are far more mixed. Of their next two collaborations Hot Fuzz is pretty good from memory but I’ve never gone back in on it and the less I say about The World’s End the better. There’s something that’s always struck me about post-Shaun Pegg – and I truly hate to make this comparison because I don’t think his afflicition is anywhere near this extreme but – he has a slight touch of the James Cordens about him. “American success? Great, you lot can fuck off then.” I could be completely off – but that’s the vibes I get.
Oh and Nick Frost? The man can do no wrong.
How do I feel about Shaun of the Dead these days? It’s still pretty perfect. I just try not to think about Run Fatboy Run or Paul while watching it.
Where would I fit into Shaun of the Dead? Well, there’s a scene where an oblivious Shaun goes to the convenience store and doesn’t notice a bloody hand print on drinks fridge, nor that he slips in blood afterwards. For me the absolute pressing question of the film is: whose blood is that? And if I was in England during the events of this film, you best believe I’d make my way to a store and gawp at all the weird different products they’ve got over there.
IF I WERE IN 'SHAUN OF THE DEAD' I WOULD: BE NIBBLED OUT OF EXISTENCE, LIKE A PENGUIN BISCUIT OR A TERRY'S CHOCOLATE ORANGE
