Weirdness... of the Dead

For this blog post, I watched the movie Shaun of the Dead, a comedy based fantasy horror zombie apocalypse, that I found both funny and disturbing. Even though it is a parody of Dawn of the Dead, it did not hold back with visual violence and gore unlike other parodies that usually imply that something violent is happening. The movie is about a british man called Shaun, whose life was falling apart when his girlfriend broke up with him, and lost his present for his mother’s birthday. However, the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse allowed Shaun to take advantage of the situation by redeeming himself, using his wits to fight off the zombies with his childhood best friend to rescue his mother and girlfriend. I have noticed that Shaun’s action is similar to other zombie apocalypse films where either the main character or other secondary support always try to redeem themselves by using their wits and abilities towards the situation.

In this movie, the appearance of zombies happened at a slow pace; it started with people suddenly getting sick and progressively turned into zombies. The main character was unaware of the spreading sickness, and did not notice the zombies acting weird. He just casually passed by them. I found the main character’s unawareness very weird since usually in these types of movies, the main characters are aware and prepared to fight the zombies since they turn into zombies at such a quick pace.

There were some parts of the movie that I found it very weird and funny. For example, in the scene where the two main protagonists were attacking the zombies with record disks, their reactions were weird and unusual. Shaun was being picky on selecting which record disk he or his best friend should throw at the zombies approaching them rather than throwing anything and everything at the zombies. Another scene that I found weird was when the actors decided to cross through a hoard of zombies by acting like them and actually succeeding on the attempt for a while.

I also found that the movie was weird because I was not expecting to see such intense and serious scenes in a humorous comedy. For example, when Shaun’s step-father was bitten by a zombie, he explained to Shaun why he was hard on him all these years and told him that he loves him. This was a hard scene for Shaun after knowing the truth and having to leave him behind. Another example was when Shaun’s mother revealed that she was bitten by a zombie on their way to the bar. It was difficult for Shaun to decide whether he should kill his mother before she turns into a zombie and attacks them.

To conclude, the unusual reactions of the characters and the unexpected intense scenes in a humorous comedy emphasized the weirdness of the movie as a whole.