Shaun of the Dead

This movie came highly recommended by several people, so I gave it a try.

Warning: spoilers.

The first three-quarters of the movie a comedy with some mild horror elements. It probably earns its R rating in this section, but as much for "strong language" as blood and gore. I found this portion well scripted, acted, and generally a very clever parody of zombie movies in general. I was especially fond of the various improvised weapons, and meeting up with the mirror-image survivor team.

At about the point where we find out the mother has been bitten, however, the movie suddenly shifts gears from a comedy movie with mild horror elements to a horror movie with mild comedy elements. It was rather jarring, and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why they'd done it that way. About the time I got reconciled to it the army showed up with gratuitous automatic weapons fire, and it looked for a moment as if we were going to transition back to comedy. Then mirror-team leader comes in with the "I'm glad... someone... survived." To me this strongly implies that most of her team did not, further elevating the body count and twisting us back to horror. Then we get the aftermath, which looked like it was trying to be comedy again, but there were just too many false notes for me.

If I were seeking a comparison for Shaun, I'd compare it to The Mummy (1999 version with Brendan Fraser). That's a comedy with some moderate horror elements, parodying the monster movie genre. It, too, switches from comedy to horror, but it does so with enough regularity that you get adjusted to the changes easily.

Overall Shaun goes on my list of movies that was worth seeing once, but probably not twice.