In the summer of 2004, I spent my Friday nights shilling concessions to people trying to catch the latest blockbuster releases. As they are today, back then most of the screens in my particular multiplex were occupied by sequels: Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to name a few. And while I enjoyed tentpoles as much as the next person (Spider-Man 2 is still my favorite superhero flick), my tastes had started to shift and what I was truly interested in was sadly not afforded nearly as many screens as Mike Myers’ ogre-antics.
Horror had become my movie of choice and that summer had been… fairly dry. My favorite horror at the time was George A. Romero’s zombie trilogy and I was jonesing for more like it. Sure, earlier in the year the Dawn of the Dead remake had been released and that was a lot of fun. But, it didn’t scratch that Romero itch.
Then, I saw the trailer for Shaun of the Dead.
I can’t recall what it played before to be honest, all I knew was that I had to see it. It looked to be tailor made for me. I had only recently discovered my love for zombie films, in particular the Romero brand of the monsters, and here was a movie made by people who seemed to just… get it.
Months passed and the summer movie season drew to a close. It was time to change out the posters. When the new arrivals came for September, I excitedly looked through them, desperately searching for the one sheet that would signify Shaun’s encroaching presence. But as I flipped through the stack, a new realization dawned.
My theater wasn’t going to get it.
The whole reason I sacrificed my Friday nights that summer was to gain a Saturday morning matinee. That was the perk. Work in the theater, see whatever you want when the hours weren’t peak. My whole worldview was disintegrating.
I was younger then, naive. I didn’t know how it worked. I hadn’t occurred to me that every theater wouldn’t get every movie. That some were relegated to smaller venues, demographics that were assumed to be more in line with the audience the movie was aimed toward. None of that mattered to me. All I knew was that I had to see the movie.
I researched it. I was in luck— not twenty minutes from my house was a theater that would be playing Shaun of the Dead. Sure, it wouldn’t be free— or as free as a complimentary matinee provided as a result of a minimum wage concession stand job may be— but I would be able to see it.
I called and got my tickets in advance. I even requested off on opening night, gaining back a Friday, to get the full experience. To see it with a crowd. With the people who wanted to see it most. You know, people like me.
Sometimes the movie going experience is exactly as it should be, a communal event which revels in the shared enjoyment of a work of entertainment, a work of art. And what happened in that crowded theater one Friday night in September of 2004 was precisely that. High praise for a zombie comedy? Certainly, but I can think of very few movies which deserve it more.
The movie was everything I had dreamed it would be. Hilarious and heartfelt, a character study utilizing the slowly stalking dead to force its characters to look around at their lives and make a change. It was aware of its history, its context in the genre, more than willing to send-up the goofier elements of the zombie milieu while being equally interested in honoring them.
It was one of the first times I felt the great gravitational pull of the horror community. I felt connected to something. In on the secret. And, with that, my waxing interest evolved ever deeper into devotion.
I returned to see the movie at that theater several more times throughout its run. Eventually, it did show up at my particular place of employment, on a small screen for about a week more than a month into its release. It didn’t do particularly well there, but you better believe I went to several screenings, even if I was all by myself.
So much of the movie worked for me, whether I was alone in the theater or sitting alongside countless others, mixing humor and horror with strong character work that never failed to endear. And when I think about the various sequences that bring that sentimentality to life, it’s hard not to be drawn to Shaun and Ed’s first encounter with the zed-word in his backyard.
Funny, compelling and damn important narratively, the sequence utilizes effects, blocking and slapstick comedy to introduce the protagonists to the threat which will drive the rest of the film’s runtime. Written with flair and liveliness, the page flows very similarly to the events onscreen, all the while providing the actors with the freedom to make the scene their own.
Together Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg created one of the greatest love letters to the world of George A. Romero and his zombie legacy, while also birthing one of the best zombie films ever made in its own right. The sequence in the backyard represents the best the movie has to offer, showcasing the importance of a solid foundation of words in regards to expert filmmaking.
I may have had to leave my workplace multiplex to find it, but it was a lesson I needed to learn. When you’re a part of something, you find a way to support it, even if it does cost you $8.
THE SCENE
Shaun enters the garden to find a pale, stumbling woman. He and Ed engage her under the assumption that she’s drunk. She grabs Shaun and Ed snaps photos. Shaun struggles, becoming more and more unnerved until he finally heaves her off of him. She falls onto a metal pole, impaling herself. Shaun and Ed stare for a moment in horror. Then, she rises, pulling herself off of the pole and continues toward them, a huge hole in her stomach. Shaun and Ed turn to go back inside and come face to face with yet another, much larger member member of the undead.
THE SCRIPT
THE SCREEN
SHAUN calls timidly to the GIRL.
SHAUN: Hello… excuse me?
ED picks up a lump of mud and throws it at the GIRL.
ED: Oi!
The script offers a fast paced depiction of the events, flowing incredibly fluidly and allowing the reader to share the experience of the characters. Its quick witted nature heightens the humor and the horror as the danger and absurdity escalates.
Onscreen, the words come to life in an almost mirror image of what appears on the page. The voices of the characters were fully formed in the script, so even the dialogue and character reactions are essentially the same. That is not to say the visualization doesn’t offer any nuance. On the contrary, Edgar Wright’s flare for direction and blocking compliments the script immensely and makes for a powerful final product.
The scene opens on a medium, Shaun and Ed standing where they’ll stand for the duration of this brief encounter. The shot then cuts to the woman, her back to the camera. The camera continues to move, slowly rotating between Shaun and Ed and the woman in the garden. The image comes to rest on Shaun and Ed’s faces in close on either side of the frame, with the woman centered in the middle. There’s a kinetic energy to the way in which the camera moves, the timing with which Shaun and Ed react, that drives the scene forward.
As scripted, Ed throws a lump of mud at the woman and The missile strikes her on the head. The camera again holds on Shaun and Ed as Shaun grimaces and Ed wears a look of satisfaction. The moment serves as a microcosm for their relationship, what is both working and what is not, as the film heads into its second act.
WE SEE HER FACE
The screenplay builds in a beat to land the importance of seeing the woman for the first time as she is, for all intents and purposes, the first zombie that Shaun and Ed will fully encounter. The description on the page is apt as the girl appears pale, greyish and her eyes are lifeless and cloudy. The script leaves it with, The image is horrific and unmistakable.
The script goes on to depict Shaun and Ed’s continuing banter, with Shaun exclaiming, “Oh my God! She is so drunk!” And Ed asking, “How much have you had?” The film builds in the beat referenced in the script, beginning with Shaun saying, “Oh my God…” in quiet awe. The breath creates a stronger punchline out of “She is so drunk” and, together with the bold certainty presented in the script, highlights the hilarity in the protagonists’ lack of understanding.
The scene progresses as scripted, the woman lurching forward, her ARMS OUTSTRETCHED towards SHAUN as Ed ribs him. The dialogue appears unchanged and when the girl reaches Shaun, they fall. The bones of the scene are in place perfectly: Shaun asks for help, Ed tells him to wait and runs into the house.
Visually, the camera gets a tad shakier as the scene progresses. When Shaun and the girl fall, the camera tracks over to Ed as he says, “Wait there” and hurries off, before moving back to Shaun who shouts “Ed!” indignantly. The fluidity of the camera and the reactionary nature of its movements continue to feed into the excitement and practical hilarity of the moment.
This all builds to the moment when Shaun’s nervous laughter transitions from discomfort to fear, as SHAUN gets a clear look at her eyes. Something’s not right. In the film, Shaun pushes her away in a close up, staring at her open, gaping mouth and the deadness of her cloudy eyes. His expression turns and his eyes shift, embodying that perfectly phrased line something’s not right.
The moment is interrupted by Ed, appearing beside them with a camera. While the script suggests he, has come running back, the film cuts to the chase as he says, “Hold it there.” The image cuts to a medium from Ed’s perspective of Shaun and the woman. They turn in a moment of surprise and stare, as if posing for the camera. The moment is perfectly timed and plays as a wonderfully subversive bit of hilarity to counteract the previous seconds’ worth of deep-seated fear.
From there, the image cuts to the reverse angle, Shaun in the lower left corner of the frame, the girl on top of him and Ed in the background holding the camera. Shaun turns, his teeth bared and shouts, “Get her off me.” In the script Ed pushes the girl away. In the film he grabs her and pulls, coming face to face with the woman and, as the script puts it, gets his first good look.
Shaun and Ed are back in the same position they were at the beginning, staring at the girl in the garden. Only now, they aren’t laughing. Shaun’s tone hardens as he starts to warn the girl, “Now seriously, I’m warning you…” The film and the script make a point of having Shaun check her name badge reading MARY, again focusing on humanizing the creatures and pointing out the unfathomable nature of finding a zombie in one’s garden.
Finally, Shaun threatens, “I’m going to have to get physical. I mean it!” In the film, Shaun looks noticeably shaken by his words, completely uninterested in doing anything to harm this woman. He even attempts to give her one final warning, approaching her with a knowing look and his hands outstretched to indicate the final line that’s being crossed. The script annotates this as well with the sentence, Shaun loses his patience.
SHAUN shoves MARY hard in the chest. She stumbles down the garden, falls backwards and IMPALES HERSELF onto the rusty remnants of a free standing clothes line. The metal pole protrudes through her stomach. BLOOD oozes through her top. SHAUN puts his hands to his mouth. Ed bites his lip.
The shot begins in a medium as Shaun pushes Mary hard. It cuts to a wide as Mary stumbles backward, Shaun and Ed in the background. Then, she trips and lands on the pole in a medium close up. The shot progression culminates with a medium shot of Shaun and Ed in the background and the pole in the foreground as Mary slides down, blood and sinew spurting upwards.
Shaun’s hand covers his mouth while Ed stands entirely still, looking mildly surprised. The scene strikes an impeccable balance that it manages to maintain throughout the remainder of the film. It’s both gruesome and hilarious, playing off of the hapless nature of the protagonists and the empathy the viewer feels for innocents in a world occupied by the murderous undead.
SQUELCH. She gets up.
In one medium, close-up shot, Mary rises. She inches herself off of the pole, guts and sinew spilling back into the hollow hole in the middle, and stands. Sunlight shines through the fleshy gap in her stomach which comes to rest in front of Shaun and Ed, perfectly framing Shaun’s flabbergasted expression. The image cuts back to Shaun and Ed in front of the house. Then, as the scene and film at large is prone to do, it completely subverts the horrifying nature of the moment with one of the funniest gags in its runtime: ED starts to wind the fun camera. Shaun bats it out of his hands.
Shaun speaks quietly now, saying as scripted, “I think we should go back inside” and Ed agrees. They turn and the camera tracks with them, landing on someone else in the garden.
They turn to see a HULKING MAN right behind them. His eyes dead also. He has massive injuries to his face and neck…
The HULKING MAN has the same grayish skin as Mary, but he is much larger and wearing a far more stony expression. Mary looked forlorn, but the Man looks monstrous. His mouth is torn, cuts and gashes spider-webbing out across his cheeks and jaw. The camera zooms in on Shaun and Ed and swirls quickly to the side, transitioning back into the house and concluding the scene.
The viewer is left in a similar state as Shaun and Ed, fully aware of the threat at hand and the annoying, bloody cost of dealing with it. More than that, the scene makes clear the pros and cons of Shaun and Ed’s social dynamic and how such a relationship might be a help and a hindrance in the post-apocalyptic landscape of a zombie infested world.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
“This is one of the first ideas we came up with for the film, I remember living in High Gate and having a big garden and thinking what it’d be like to get up and just see one in the garden in the morning,” Simon Pegg said on the blu-ray disc commentary for Shaun of the Dead (Available here). Edgar Wright continued on the same commentary, adding, “Most horror films take place in the evening. Our idea was to do the bleary, hung-over Sunday morning film.”
My time working at a movie theater taught me several lessons. For one thing, people apparently don’t like to throw out their old popcorn bags. Oh and not every theater gets every movie. As I grew older and delved deeper into the horror genre, it became apparent that many films suffered similar (and worse) fates than simply not being put in every multiplex. It seemed that if you really fell in love with a movie, or the idea of one, it was your responsibility to see it, support it and, above all, champion it.
Shaun of the Dead is a film steeped in the horror genre. A love letter to the movies that came before it, that inspired it. The film is a high-energy, visual wonder, something that would be entertaining to look at with or without the compelling story, characters and monsters on display.
The scene in the garden stands as a representative of the best of all of those elements. A sequence that leans on the characters and the humor as much as it does the zombies and the horror they represent. In the commentary, Edgar Wright points out that the scene was “a combination of physical and digital effects” brought to life by the film’s impressive visual and special effects team.
In the feature “Raw Meat” on the blu-ray disc, a video is shown breaking down this scene in particular. A number of different versions of the scene had to be filmed and composited to get the full effect of Mary’s collision with the pipe. In one take, she falls onto a flexible pipe which could retract into the ground and in another the pipe was shown on green screen. Full makeup was applied to her back to create the wound physically. Then, over green screen, they filmed someone lifting a mat from the base of the pipe leaking what looked like guts back into the hole in the middle.
“[That was] done with dogwood,” Edgar Wright said on his commentary track.
The final piece of the composite was a digitally applied wound halo over the lens, which was centered on Shaun’s face to provide the appearance that he was being seen through Mary’s stomach. All of this, for mere seconds of screen time.
The best horror movies work hard to both honor the past and push the genre forward into the future. Shaun of the Dead came at a time when I needed it most, when I was discovering and discerning my horror tastes. It taught me that love of the genre was rewarding and that there were others like me out there. It’s a movie that represents the very best of fandom, reinvention and untethered creativity in a sub-genre so often accused of being tired and worn.
I didn’t take home a Shaun of the Dead poster at the end of its run as my theater never received one. I did, however, walk away with a deeper appreciation of the genre and what it was capable of: the humor, the heart and, for lack of a better word, the horror. Whether it be a pole through the stomach of a zombie in the garden or blowing the brains out of a stuffy roommate, the movie doesn’t disappoint in effects all the while featuring hilarious moments like Ed’s attempt to snap a picture of a zombie with his “fun camera”.
The summer of 2004 was indeed a stressful one in my short-lived movie theater career. But while I had to sweep through the end credits of Shrek 2 countless times (the lyrics to As Lovers Go by Dashboard Confessional are straight burned into my memory banks) and while Spider-Man 2 will forever remind me of so many discarded popcorn and soda containers, it brought me Shaun of the Dead.
Who needs Friday nights when you got that?
Shaun of the Dead (2004): Written by Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg & Directed by Edgar Wright
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