Hilarious 'Shaun of the Dead' attacks the horror genre

"Shaun of the Dead" is the funniest movie so far this year. If the predictable antics of the horror film genre make you roll your eyes, this is the perfect comic antidote. Director

Edgar Wright and his co-writer/star Simon Pegg nailed everything that is stupid and funny about this genre.

There are truly scary movies and there are horror genre movies. The truly scary films, like "Jaws," "The Shining," and "Alien," often hit deep seated fears hidden in our psyche. Sometimes the fears are of a particular time, like the sexual metaphors in "Dracula" and others transcend their time period. All are telling about the psychological undercurrents of a society.

But beneath these grand horror themes, lurk the horror genre films. Rather than being realistically scary, this funhouse construction follows a safe and predictable formula to scare only within safely defined limits. These movies are like riding a roller coaster, where as scary as it is, you are still certain you are safe and can see what is around the bend.

Really scare films are intriguing but the funhouse genre horror movies are as likely laughable as not. Their conventions have already been parodied in the "Scream" movies. But those are still inside the genre. The Wayan brothers took a turn at it with the crude humor of "Scary Movie," but sometime less heavy-handed was needed. Now we have it and leave it to the British to make a really funny parody of the zombie film, "Shaun of the Dead."

Billed as a "romantic comedy with zombies," the emphasis should really be on the comedy part. Like comedies stretching back to the silent era, the romance is there mostly to drive the characters into action. Slacker Shaun (Simon Peg) is happy in his comfortable routine of going to the same pub with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), her roommates Diane and David (Dylan Moran) and his unemployed Neanderthal childhood buddy and roommate Ed (Nick Frost), until his girlfriend complains that they are never alone and are stuck in a rut. Actually Shaun's whole life is in suspended animation, from his dead-end job to his daily routine. Meanwhile, his ambition-free roommate Ed is so crude and unmotivated that he repulses even Shaun's other roommate Pete (Peter Serafinowicz). Still, Shaun defends him and makes excuses for his laziness. When the girlfriend gives Shaun one last chance to break out of his rut, he blows it and she dumps him.

Depressed, Shaun does not notice as people around him start to seem even more slack-jawed and hypnotized than usual, as they one by one turn into zombies. It is a delicious parody of the way everyone is so slow to catch on in horror films, while also a biting satire of the mind-numbingness of working life. These zombies, however, are even dumber and more easily dispatched that the usual case. Once Shaun and his bud finally figure out what is happening, they dispatch them with a cricket bat and a garden shovel and sharp blows to the head. Fleeing the zombie onslaught, they set out to rescue both Shaun's mother and his ex-girlfriend, and head for the safest place they can think of - a pub, of course.

There are an endless number of beautifully timed visual jokes and the film skewers every convention of the cliché-ridden genre. The emphasis is much more on humor than frights, although by the end, the film gets into lots of movie gore. Still, the film never misses a comic beat and is filled with that dry sharp British humor.

Only the Brits do this kind of comedy this well. "Shaun of the Dead" provoked howls of laughter in the audience, although a few of the real horror film fans seemed a bit unsure if it was supposed to be funny. The gore at the end undercuts the just-for-laughs absurdity a bit but the film is so funny overall, that it is a tendancy easily overlooked.

If you truly like scary movies like "Halloween" and are dead serious about the genre, you will still probably find "Shaun of the Dead" amusing. But for someone who thinks that genre horror films are mind-numbingly dumb, this film is just about the funniest thing to come along. Not likely to win an Oscar, but the film is sure to be a hit here, just like it already is in Europe.