Shaun of the Dead

You wake up to a zombie apocalypse: what is your household weapon of choice, and which of your friends do you take along to face the collapse of civilization? If your zombies are aggressive, fast-moving, and bloodthirsty, like the infected hordes in 28 Days Later, World War Z, Train to Busan, etc., then the chances of survival are slim. But if you wake up to a world where zombies slowly shuffle about, like “a drunk who’s lost a bet”—as they do in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead—then the odds should be much better.

Easily the best zombie spoof film ever made, Shaun of the Dead is so memorable because the film’s lovably incompetent protagonist moves only incrementally faster than the sluggish zombies he must fight, leading to a suspenseful comedy of errors.

Deadbeat Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a 29-year-old entry-level worker at a mom-and-pop electronics store in London. He stubbornly ignores the advice of everyone he knows by clinging to his juvenile relationship with his best mate, Ed (Nick Frost), an immature couch potato who is clearly holding Shaun back from reaching anything resembling potential.

But Ed offers moral support when Shaun’s girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), dumps him, which she does mostly out of frustration with Shaun’s ineptitude. To cope with the heartbreak, the two roommates go on a drinking binge at their local pub, which is where they spend most of their time when they’re not at home playing video games.

The next day, hungover Shaun stumbles through his routine on autopilot, completely aloof to the zombie apocalypse unfolding around him. The news on the telly grows increasingly alarming as Shaun and Ed vaguely begin to register that something is off. Once reality sets in, they embark on a harebrained scheme to save Shaun’s mom from his infected stepfather and to win Liz back.

Shaun of the Dead is in many ways an absurdist coming-of-age story, which uses jump scares and body horror to propel its satire. Pegg and Wright’s script is rife with dry innuendo and witty puns whose layered meanings and precise timing offer a playful critique of the mundane, sheeplike existence of the modern working class. It pays loving homage to the zombie canon (the title being a nod to George A. Romero’s 1978 classic, Dawn of the Dead) and cleverly deconstructs the tropes of the genre it spoofs. No list of must-watch zombie films would be complete without it.