SHAUN OF THE DEAD

(2004) For over a dozen years I've heard friends, family and strangers sing the praises of this seminal zombie-comedy mix; a classic of the genre that created its own genre.  Simon Pegg, in his breakout role, plays slacker dude Shaun, a guy not having a good day after being dumped by his girlfriend.  He commands no respect from his stepfather, even less from his retail coworkers, and is being besotted upon by his roommate Pete (Peter Serafinowicz), over what you can't quite tell is the third roommate or just Shaun's incredibly slovenly, video game and booze addicted childhood buddy Ed (Nick Frost), who wants to keep Shaun to his single, pub-crawling, game-playing ways.  But Shaun, the night after the breakup, wakes up determined to change his life; to win his girlfriend back, go visit his mom on her birthday, and try to be a better man ... just as the zombie apocalypse breaks out in London.  Picture a slacker comedy as directed by George Romero - I guess, because for me Shaun of the Dead just wasn't particularly funny.  Maybe from years of hearing so much about the film it's just been played up too big in my head, but my overwhelming feeling watching the film was annoyance; Shaun and Ed's being too damn clueless to realize they're dealing with the walking dead for the longest time, sure, but what I couldn't get past throughout the entire watch was my overwhelming desire to reach through the screen and kill Nick Frost's character myself (Ed just ratcheted my nerves like no movie character has in recent memory).  To me the film just felt like a younger-generation version of Pegg's film The World's End, and (again: for me) didn't work too well as either a comedy or a zombie thriller.  (rated R)  5/10 stars