Shawn Of The Dead

I just saw a sneak preview of Shawn Of The Dead - and let me tell you, it's a scream!

For those of you not in the know, this is a British zombie movie that doubles as a comedy. Shawn is just your average bloke who works in retail, drinks beer, plays video games with his flatmate, and has troubles with his girlfriend...until one day when the recently dead come back to eat the living.

Okay, I know what you're thinking - whenever comedy and horror get mixed, the result is Scary Movie, Beetlejuice, or (heaven help us) Arachniphobia. But here's where this one is different, it's British. So instead of over-the-top American humor (where everything and everyone is goofy), we get clever British wit. If you still can't quite grasp this, try combining in your head Dawn Of The Dead with the cleverness of Monty Python (though there is just a bit of outright silliness).

There is one other difference between this and other horror or comedy films, the characters are fairly well developed. They're not the usual cardboard cutouts or oversexed teens we're used to seeing in these kinds of movies, they actually have lives and real problems.

There's something in this film for everyone. The horror fans get their pound of flesh, there's even one scene where a victim gets torn apart by a swarm of zombies, ala the motorcycle guy from Dawn Of The Dead. Other than that the gore is spurting blood and flesh wounds. The real genius (yes, I'm applying the word genius to a horror film) is in how the main characters deal with it in their own boyish sort of way, say by going through a vinyl record collection to find bad albums to throw at the zombies. There are so many funny bits that I can't even try to count them...even in the midst of terror there's well placed humor and belly laughs.