In The Garden, There Is A Girl

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JA from MNPP here, taking a look at one of my favorite films not just of 2004 but of the entire decade. My first thought when I noticed that Shaun of the Dead came out in '04 was, "Really? It's only five years old? I feel as if it's been a part of my life forever." And then my second thought was, "Really? It's five whole years old? It feels like it just came out yesterday."

I really can't imagine a world without Shaun in it, though. What a terrible world that would be! One of the greatest horror films in the 00's, it's smart enough to know you haven't really made a zombie movie unless you've included a zombie feeding frenzy where they pull a person in half...


... and it's also one of the funniest comedies of the 00's - funny enough to have a delightful comic actress like Lucy Davis playing a terrible actress forced to give an acting lesson on how to behave like a zombie in front of an actual impaled zombie...

"Just look at the face: it's vacant, with a hint of sadness.
... Like a drunk, who's lost a bet."

... and on top of that, is also a film entirely capable of yanking your heart-strings right outta your chest. Exhibit A: Shaun's Mum.

It still makes me sad. Damn you, Shaun's Mum.

But in a decade crammed full of the undead (sidenote: when we rolled through 2002 here how did I not write about the impact 28 Days Later had on the next several years of entertainment? Decade of the Undead wouldn't be too off as a calling card for the oo's, although in this current Twilight climate it's a fangier sort of undead we're talking about now), Shaun stands apart. I've seen zombies on a plane, zombies at the prom, slow zombies, fast zombies, zombies as pets, zombies as flotation devices, Nazi zombies, Ninja zombies, Stripper zombies, Bill Murray zombies... much like the undead of which I speak, I could keep going and going and going.

But Shaun, like all the better zombie movies, found a way to make the metaphor of the undead interesting again - what Shaun's really running from is the state of adolescence that he's gotten himself trapped in. Zombie = the ultimate slacker. It's telling that the weapons Shaun uses through the film all tend to be things that he's used to keep him from his actual adult responsibilities: his record collection, his cricket bat, the darts at the local pub...


And refreshingly in the end Shaun doesn't have to totally give up all of his slacker tendencies to become a grown-up and win the girl... he just has to hide them in the backyard, out of her way. A happy ending for all! Well except for all the people those died, naturally.

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