I would have to say Shaun for many of the reasons cited above.
Observation: my son and I had seen Shaun. We were visiting a friend who had seen Zombieland. We decided on a double feature to share them - but started with Zombieland. Should’ve started with Shaun - if feels so weird to use this adjective to describe Shaun of the Dead, a zombie movie, but it was more subtle and character-focused - dammit, it was!
Seeing Zombieland first got us more in big, whiz-bang action/funny mode so Shaun seemed like a downshift. If we had seen Shaun first it would’ve been a great opener leading to the big whiz-bang of ZL.
I was just discussing both movies yesterday, saying to someone that if they liked Shaun of the Dead, they should give Zombieland a try. Both are fun and funny movies, but Shaun of the Dead is more interesting.
Shaun is REALLY REALLY good until like the last half-hour… and then it falls flat. Once you get to them trapped in the Winchester and they need to start killing off characters ‘just cuz’ I lose interest.
The scene in Shaun where they are going through the record selection to pick what to throw at the zombie… holy balls! It really doesn’t get better than that.
Another “liked Zombieland loved Shaun” here. *Zombieland * was a bigger surprise because I really didn’t expect to care for it, but I still probably won’t see it again. Shaun gets rewatched and loaned to friends, even those who don’t like zombie movies.
I can understand what you’re saying, but you know what? I was born in New York City, I’ve lived in Austin, Texas for 26 years, and I’ve known DOZENS of guys in Austin exactly like Shaun!
Austin is filled with likable underachievers like Shaun and Ed. There are countless Austin males who graduated from college a decade ago, but are still living like college boys- sharing a squalid apartment, working jobs that are beneath them, spending their spare time drinking and playing video games, while their girlfriends (who’ve gotten high-paying executive jobs at Dell or IBM) are nagging them to grow up.
Shaun used a few British words and phrases that I wasn’t familiar with, but I had absolutely no trouble relating to him.
Incidentally, I first saw ***Shaun of the Dead ***at an Austin theater called the Alamo Draft House. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost must have visted a few days earlier, because the theater showed a quick promo video in which Nick and Simon welcomed the audience, and gave us a friendly “Hook 'em Horns!”
Tough call. Shaun is the far more intricately written and richer film, but I’m not big on popular music so many of those references simply escaped me. I found it also helped to turn the subtitling on for some scenes.
Which is my problem with Zombieland - everyone in it is obliviously stupid. Which kind of pissed me off, since the opening baited me with the idea that this movie would be about smart people dealing intelligently with zombie movie tropes and cliches, but ended up being about people who are markedly dumber than the standard horror movie victims.
Still liked it all right, but it’s not a patch on Shaun.
This. Close race, but Zombieland wins by virtue of thinking through the ramifications of zombie apocalypse in a rather more realistic way, considering.
I’m liking the notion of a “realistic” zombie apocalypse here… by that token would you say Gremlins was a rather more “realistic” depiction of cute mischief-making alien creatures invading earth than Critters?
