Monday, October 4, 2010

Another British zombie film captures Saturn Award

I scratched another Saturn Award winner for Best Horror Movie off my list last night when I rewatched the 2004 winner, “Shaun of the Dead.”

This movie is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen and the only reason it even qualifies as a “horror” movie is because it’s a spoof of a number of different zombie movies. It offers a stark contrast to the 2003 winner, “28 Days Later,” which is also a movie from the zombie genre.

For those of you who’ve never watched “Shaun of the Dead,” it’s about a group of friends who try to survive in a world that’s slowly being overrun by slow-moving, flesh-eating zombies. The zombies appear on the scene gradually and most of the main characters seem so caught up in their every day lives that they don’t realize something’s amiss until the zombie’s are literally knocking at their doors.

This movie was directed by Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg in the lead as a 29-year-old salesman named Shaun Riley. The movie was shot on a budget of four million pounds (about $6.3 million) and went on to post gross revenues of over $30 million.

In addition to receiving a Saturn Award for Best Horror Movie, “Shaun of the Dead” received a number of other awards. Total Film magazine named it the 49th greatest British film of all time in 2004. Stylus Magazine named it the ninth greatest zombie movie ever made in 2007. That same year, Time named it one of the 25 best horror movies ever made.

In the end, it was a lot of fun rewatching this horror comedy. How many of you have had a chance to watch “Shaun of the Dead”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or not? Let us know in the comments section below.

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