Fosters: Official Beer of the Zombie Apocalypse.

A hero will rise. If he really has to. And there’s nothing good on TV. 

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is an ambition-free Londoner who likes his girlfriend, video games, drinking at the pub and his slacker best friend, not necessarily in that order. His routine is disturbed – though it takes a while – by an annoying outbreak of zombie-ism. Now it’s time for this man-child to grow up, take some responsibility and lead his family and friends on a desperate journey to safety. (Don’t feel too sorry for him; he’s the one who led them out of safety in the first place.)

Shaun of the Dead is, in part, a satire of zombie movies, with its shuffling hordes of lethargic undead, its motley assortment of terrified survivors and its willingness to go for the gore all played for laughs. But the best of the zombie movies used the mindless, nameless monsters to comment on some aspect of our culture and Shaun respectfully follows that tradition. Here the primary target is the disaffection of modern urban life. The central joke of Shaun of the Dead is that up until the point where they try to eat your brain it’s hard to distinguish the zombies from the typical London commuter, trudging glassy-eyed off to another day at the office. So wrapped up is Shaun in his constant quest for distraction that he flips right by news reports of the zombie epidemic as he looks for something more entertaining to watch, and he doesn’t even notice the half-dozen zombies he encounters on his morning trip to the neighborhood shop.

This guy's still wearing his walkman. What do you suppose he's listening to? The Zombies? Bill O'Reilly? Creed?

Co-written by Pegg and director Edgar Wright, Shaun of the Dead plays out with nearly impeccable comic timing and a keen eye for sly, funny background details. They have no qualms about alternating deadpan, character-based humor with exaggerated, slapstick-style humor, with the occasional absurd non sequitur or fart joke thrown into the mix. There are even a couple of scenes that are genuinely moving. These work well, largely because the filmmakers realize they shouldn’t linger over them too long. The shifts in tone are usually handled smoothly. The only time it’s jarring is when the film goes in for some serious gore. Now, this is so over the top that I know the filmmakers were trying to go for a laugh, but the gesture seems forced.

Pegg is a natural as the flawed-but-likeable everyman, and he has a good rapport with Nick Frost, playing his best friend Ed. The movie does indeed have an emotional core, and their relationship is it. Funnier than Scary Movie and scarier than most of what passes for horror these days, Shaun of the Dead is a good comedy, a good zombie flick and a just plain good movie.

Gorilla Pants rating: 3.5 out of 4 bananas