Shaun of the Dead is a 2004 British zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden London salesman who is caught alongside his loved ones in a zombie apocalypse. It also stars Nick Frost in his film debut, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy, and Penelope Wilton. It is the first film in Wright and Pegg's Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, followed by Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013).
Shaun of the Dead was inspired by ideas Pegg and Wright used for their 1999–2001 television sitcom Spaced, particularly an episode in which Pegg's character hallucinates a zombie invasion. The film references the Night of the Living Dead films by George A. Romero. Principal photography took place across London and at Ealing Studios for nine weeks between May and June 2003.
Shaun of the Dead premiered in London on 29 March 2004, before it was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 9 April 2004 and in the United States on 24 September. It was met with critical acclaim and commercial success, grossing $38.7 million worldwide on a budget of $6.1 million and receiving three nominations at the British Academy Film Awards. It was ranked third on the Channel 4 list of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films and quickly acquired a cult following. In film studies, it is seen as a product of post-9/11 anxiety, and portrait of post-Thatcher Britain as well as a model for transnational comedy, while the zombie outbreak as depicted in the film has been used as a modelling example for disease control.
Plot
In the Crouch End area of London, 29-year-old sales advisor Shaun is disrespected by his colleagues, does not get along with his stepfather Philip, and is dumped by his girlfriend Liz after he promises to improve himself but is unsuccessful in making decent plans for an anniversary date. At his favourite pub, the Winchester, a heartbroken Shaun gets drunk with his slacker best friend Ed. At home, Shaun and Ed's roommate Pete complains of a bite wound from a mugger and berates Shaun, telling him to stop leaning on Ed and to get his life together.
The following day, a zombie apocalypse has overwhelmed London. Shaun and Ed do not notice until they encounter two zombies in their garden, whom they beat to death after throwing household implements and Shaun's vinyl collection at them. They devise a plan to rescue Shaun's mother, Barbara, and Liz, and then wait out the crisis at The Winchester. They escape from a now-zombified Pete by stealing his car. They pick up Philip, who has been bitten, and Barbara. Ed deliberately crashes Pete's car so he can drive Philip's Jaguar Series 3. They fetch Liz and her flatmates David and Dianne. Philip reconciles with Shaun before becoming a zombie.
Forced to abandon the car and their weapons, they sneak through the neighbourhood and briefly encounter a group led by Shaun's friend Yvonne, with each group member resembling a doppelgänger of the other group's members. Shaun defends Barbara from a zombie and impales it with a swingball pole. After imitating zombies to bypass a horde and reach The Winchester, Shaun and Ed argue when Ed wastes time on his phone, attracting the zombies' attention. David panics and breaks a window of The Winchester, forcing Shaun to lure the horde away using himself as bait before returning.
As the group takes refuge inside The Winchester, Shaun discovers that the zombies followed him, and Ed inadvertently attracts them by playing on the pub's slot machine. While fighting the pub's zombified owner, Shaun discovers that the Winchester rifle above the bar is functional, which he had previously debated with Ed. Barbara reveals she was bitten and dies after giving Liz and Shaun's relationship her approval. David attempts to shoot Barbara, but Shaun stops him, accusing David of hating him and being in love with Liz. David denies this, but Dianne admits she knows it is true. Barbara becomes a zombie, forcing a distraught Shaun to shoot her, and further fighting with David ensues.
The zombies break through a window of the pub and pull David out, devouring him alive. In a foolish and senseless attempt to save the dead David, Dianne opens the doors to the pub and rushes into the horde of zombies using David's severed leg as a weapon. With the doors now open, zombies pour into the bar. The zombified Pete reappears in the horde and is shot by Shaun after biting Ed. Shaun, Liz, and Ed take cover behind the bar; Shaun sets the bar on fire with alcohol to serve as a barrier. The three take refuge in the cellar, where they realise they only have two bullets left. Shaun and Liz contemplate suicide while Ed volunteers to sacrifice himself. Upon discovering a small lift for kegs that opens onto the street, Shaun and Liz exit the pub while Ed buys them time by staying behind with the rifle. Yvonne arrives with the British Army, who gun down the zombies before taking Shaun and Liz to safety.
Six months later, normality has returned but the surviving zombies are now used for free unskilled labour and entertainment. Liz has moved in with Shaun, who keeps the now-zombified Ed chained up in his garden shed. Shaun plays video games in the shed with the somewhat-sentient Ed.
Cast
Television presenters and newsreaders Carol Barnes, Rob Butler, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Vernon Kay, and Jeremy Thompson appear as themselves. In uncredited performances, Mark Gatiss and David Walliams provided the voices of news reporters. Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Garth Jennings, Mark Donovan and Michael Smiley, and Lauren Laverne appear as zombies. Chris Martin appears as a zombie, as well as himself with Jonny Buckland.
Production
Development
Shaun of the Dead was inspired by "Art", an episode of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's sitcom Spaced. Written by Pegg and Jessica Hynes and directed by Wright, the episode involves Pegg's character hallucinating a zombie invasion after playing the video game Resident Evil 2 while under the influence of amphetamine.
With a mutual appreciation for George A. Romero's Dead trilogy of zombie films, Pegg and Wright decided to write their own zombie film. In late 1999, they conceived and pitched the film to Film4, who took it on until their production budget was cut back. Despite this, Wright was still invested in the production and refused to take other television directing jobs until Shaun of the Dead was made, which left him in some debt for a while. According to Wright, other companies passed on it because "they weren't sure what the tone was and said it wasn't all that scary and not that funny. They didn't get it." After eighteen months, Working Title Films picked the project up, which Wright felt was ironic as the film mocks the classic British rom-coms that Working Title produces. The film was first announced at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
Wright has said that he came up with the film while riding in a cab with Pegg after the excitement of filming the zombie episode in Spaced, and while watching a horror film with both Pegg and Nick Frost. He began developing it in earnest after playing Resident Evil one late night himself and then going out in the early morning hours, wondering what a British person's reaction to a zombie apocalypse would be. He considered the lack of firearms typical of American zombie movies, and his experience of the dazed early morning walk to the shop turned into a scene in the film where Shaun does the same thing. Another influence from Wright's life came from how he missed the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic by simply not having paid attention to the news for a fortnight and turning his television on one day to see cattle being burnt, which left him confused. Due to this, Wright said "it's plausible that the world could be ending and these two guys could be the last to know" as they also skip over the news on television in the film. The idea of Shaun and Ed spending their time at the Winchester was also inspired by their actors' lives, as Pegg and Frost "always used to go to the same bar all the time" according to Wright, who had been trying to convince them not to.
Wright and Pegg wrote the screenplay in eight weeks. They were inspired by films including Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978), as well as Raising Arizona (1987), Back to the Future (1985), Braindead (1992) and The Birds (1963). The actors met three weeks before filming began for read-throughs, where they also made changes to the script. According to Pegg, the script has a set structure, with certain lines and actions being repeated throughout the film, making improvisation harder. Only two scenes were improvised, which include when Ed begins to describe the people at the pub and when Shaun offers the group some peanuts. Pegg said that the screenplay played well into being an actor in the film because he "could write to [his] own strengths" and create his own wish fulfilment.
Casting The film's cast features several British comedians, comedy actors and sitcom stars, most prominently from Spaced, Black Books and The Office, and co-stars other actors from the same shows. Cast members from them include Pegg, Frost, Stevenson, and Peter Serafinowicz. Frost met Pegg when he was working as a waiter and was brought aboard Spaced despite a lack of acting experience; Frost explained that Shaun and Ed have a dynamic similar to that of Pegg and himself in real life, as they had been living together for years.
Kate Winslet was approached to play Shaun's girlfriend, and met with Wright and Pegg to discuss the role, but she turned it down. Wright later confessed that he was relieved, saying "She's brilliant, but it was obvious that her fame would capsize the film in maybe a not useful way." The filmmakers originally approached Helen Mirren to play Shaun's mother, Barbara, which she turned down with a note that she would rather play other funnier characters. The role of Barbara ultimately went to Penelope Wilton, who was asked to take on the role because of her work in the 1984-89 sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles. Shaun's stepfather Philip is played by Bill Nighy, who accepted the role after Wright sent him an early script of the film to read.
Cameos and extras Secondary roles and cameos include Martin Freeman, Tamsin Greig, Julia Deakin, Matt Lucas and Reece Shearsmith. The voices of Mark Gatiss and Julia Davis can be heard as radio news presenters; Trisha Goddard also makes a cameo appearance, hosting two fictionalised episodes of her real-life talk show Trisha. Many other comics and comic actors appear in cameos as zombies, including Rob Brydon, Paul Putner, Pamela Kempthorne, Joe Cornish, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Mark Donovan and Michael Smiley. Coldplay members Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland also have cameo roles in the film; Martin is a close friend of Pegg, who is the godfather of Martin's daughter, and also contributed to the soundtrack by guest singing the cover of Buzzcocks' "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" with Ash. He does not appear as a zombie, but as himself in a charity drive.
Zombie extras were recruited from Spaced fan communities. Wright revealed in 2020 that "[the] zombies spent a week cooped up on set. They had to stand outside The Winchester, the pub where our heroes take refuge, banging on the windows and not doing much else really. When we eventually involved them properly, they had this electric energy: a pure, crazed hysteria." Originally, there were forty stunt performers hired to be the zombies, but when the production realised that they would need a lot more to fill the set pieces, many fans responded to the online call that auditions to select zombies were set up. There were over 150 zombie extras until local children saw the zombie makeup and wanted to be involved, leading to another fifty child zombies being added.
Filming