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| Some of the locals after they have been zombified. |
While admittedly not for everyone, I found Shaun of the Dead to be truly hysterical. And if you're stuck in the middle of a pandemic with all the usual late-night venues for relaxation out of commission, a movie on TV is about the best you can do. Released in 2004 by British director Edgar Wright, and starring British actors (Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield) I never saw before, I was hugely entertained, although their thick British accents obscured much of the dialog and thus may require a second viewing.
The plot is simple: A virus, much worse than the one we are now living through, has infected the world and people are getting horribly sick, then dying, then coming back to life as zombies. They are pretty gross to look at and their behavior is even worse: They tear your heart out, or eat your liver, or bite your neck and chomp on your flesh. The only way to kill them forever is to remove their brains, no easy task for the layman. The gore is hard to take and between laughs I did cover my eyes a lot.
Amidst this chaos is a simple story about Shaun, a 30-something loser who hates his dreary job, his girlfriend breaks up with him, and his best friend is a slacker who's camped out on his couch and who everyone else in his social circle hates. They are all thrust together in an effort to escape the growing number of zombies who seem to be everywhere, shuffling through the streets of London like extras in Michael Jackson's Thriller but without the dance skills. Shaun's mother and stepfather (Bill Nighy) are along for some added pathos.
If you can tolerate all the (fake) blood and guts, it's a riot. And besides, it's worse than Covid, although shorter in duration. After six months the virus is gone and so are all the zombies.
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