Although this sets out to be a spoof of zombie films (especially the original Dawn Of The Dead), Shaun Of The Dead succeeds on many more levels than that. First of all, it completely nails the essence of the horror/zombie genre, with funny and accurate rip-offs of the stereotype characters and plot devices. Secondly, it genuinely is a “romantic comedy–with zombies.” The love story is honest and heartfelt, with even the peripheral characters being well-drawn and sympathetic. And as a horror film in its own right, the film works. In places it is genuinely scary and claustrophobic. The comedy is exquisitely timed to let you experience the thrill of a horror film before breaking the tension with a belly-shaking joke. It really is an extraordinarily well-constructed film.

Update: see also Tagline’s assessment of it.

I don’t watch many scary horror films. I can handle the lightweight, jump-out-of-your-seat stuff, like Scream, Event Horizon, or Cube, but I’m not too good with the films that really set out to disturb and unsettle. It took me months to recover from The Blair Witch Project, and after seeing the 1978 version of Invasion of The Body Snatchers as an impressionable teenager I still can’t deal with having plants in the bedroom. People keep telling me how good Ring and its Japanese original Ringu are, but I have no intention of ever seeing either. Nuh-uh.

So I’m not really sure why I wanted to see Dawn Of The Dead. Maybe I wanted to expose myself to a little zombie culture before catching Shaun Of The Dead, which looks like a blast. Maybe my inner film fan wanted to compensate for never having seen the George Romero original. Maybe it was the only alternative to Starsky and Hutch that Abi found palatable…. Whatever. We saw it last night.

The first fifteen minutes or so are intensely unsettling. Before it all gets really hectic and bloody, there is a period of quiet and uncertainty that you know can’t last. It’s just a question of when the stillness will be punctured. When that moment comes, you’ve spent just enough time building up empathy with the characters that it is thoroughly shocking and disturbing. Especially if you’re a parent whose kids have a habit of getting up and scratching at your bedroom door in the middle of the night. Thanks, Alex. That was a 4am wake up call I could have done without.

Once the zombies break cover, though, the film turns into a more conventional spot-the-survivor thrill ride. A small gang of uninfected people barricade themselves in a mall, and try to figure out how to escape. They have to overcome their own bickering and paranoia, but apart from a few moving scenes, they don’t dwell on their personal losses. Their focus is on action and hope rather than on fear and despair–for which I’m glad, because I don’t think I could have coped with a whole film that was as scary as this one’s opening act.

I’m now also reconsidering my interest in seeing 28 Days Later. I did enjoy Dawn Of The Dead, but one really scary movie every few years is quite enough for me.

Funny but unspectacular. Lots of good scenes with memorable gags and one-liners, but plenty of overworked lesser characters, too, and most of the set pieces suffer from excessive build-up. Much of the humour is self-conscious, with a nod and a wink to the audience, which is fun once or twice, but by the end of the film is just plain tiresome. Not really my cup of tea.

Alex and I saw the first Scooby-Doo film together just a few weeks ago. It was fun, and I actually found myself looking forward to seeing this sequel. I’m very happy to say that my anticipation was justified. SD2 is a more confident and accomplished film. The actors are much more comfortable with their characters: Matthew Lillard just is Shaggy, and Linda Cardellini, despite being better-looking than the cartoon Velma, hits the shy, geeky nail right on the head. Freddy Prinze Jr and Sarah Michelle Gellar as Fred and Daphne don’t do as much showboating this time round, which suits them much better. It’s a more coherent ensemble film, which is what Scooby Doo is about: the gang. The plot is a bit more twisty than the first film, and feels truer to the spirit of the original cartoon. The fart jokes are still there, and they’re still funny. The visual gags are good, too–including a classic poking-heads-around-corner moment, and some synchronized tip-toeing. It’s all just good. There are some scary moments, though, so a ready parental hand in front of a toddler’s eyes is definitely recommended.

As one-joke films go, it’s not bad: hot-shot divorce lawyer falls in love with serial fortune-hunter, and they begin a merry dance that will eventually lead them into each other’s arms. I’m sure it would have made a charming 1950s romantic comedy with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. The Coen brothers, however, have managed to turn this promising idea into a stilted, passionless slapstick. In their drive to show how crafty and scheming the two protagonists are, they fail to build any sympathy for them. There is on-screen chemistry between George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones, but I couldn’t see any reason to care about it. This is what happens when you take “quirky” and “clever” a couple of steps too far. Entertaining and funny, but lacking in warmth and wisdom.

Juni Cortez (one of the Spy Kids) has left the Agency vowing never to return. But when his sister Carmen is trapped inside a hyper-immersive virtual reality videogame, he just can’t refuse the mission to rescue her. Most of the film takes place inside the game, and that’s where all the 3-D gimmickry comes in. However, the effects aren’t good enough to distract attention from the cliché-ridden plot and severely lacklustre acting (even by the standard of kids’ films). Many kids will never have seen a 3D movie before, so they may well like it for its novelty value. But remove that, and you’re left with nothing but junk. Even the vast numbers of cameo appearances become tedious and annoying by the end. (One bright light, though: George Clooney doing a Sylvester Stallone impression. That was funny.)

Talking dogs from outer space should be funnier than this, but unfortunately this film tries so hard to be inoffensive that it is nothing more than utterly bland. The idea is that dogs came to Earth thousands of years ago to colonize the place, but instead became friends with humans. Hubble (the main dog character) is an inspector from the home star (Sirius, natch), come to evaluate Earth dogs on their control of the planet. He is appalled at their domesticated status, and would have sent back a scathing report, had he not crashed his space ship and wrecked his interstellar radio. A further accident with UFO technology allows the boy Owen to understand what the dogs are saying. The rest of the film is a predictable attempt by Owen and a group of local dogs to impress Hubble, and to prepare for a visit from the Greater Dane, ruler of all doghood. It’s almost amusing in places, and almost touching in others. For the rest, it’s dumbed down pap.