5.4 - ZombEaster 2026 pt 2: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Is it a Zombie film? Is it a rom-com? Well, one thing's for sure, its ZombEaster here Speaking Cinema. In an episode that's been years in the making, the gang tackles a film that revitalized a genre, spawned legions of imitators and holds a special place in the hearts of filmmakers of a certain age. So sink your teeth into Part 2 of our three-episode zombie block, with Edgar Wright's seminal genre classic, Shaun of the Dead.

Like the episode? Leave us a comment, or send us an email at SpeakingCinemaPodcast@gmail.com and let us know what you would like to see with this new iteration of Speaking Cinema!

Thank you for listening! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

A directionless London electronic salesman finds his life stuck on repeat. Dead end job, dead-end habits, dead-end relationship. Then, one day, he finally decides to turn his mundane life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend and reconciling with his mother, only for his plans to be disrupted by the zombie apocalypse. That's right, we're shambling into the featured directorial debut of Edgar Wright, a film that somehow manages to be a razor-sharp satire, a surprisingly sincere breakup story, and a loving resurrection of the genre that George A. Romero defined decades earlier. So grab your cricket bats, head on down to the pub, and try not to lose your head. Because this week on Speaking Cinema, we're taking a bite out of 2004's Shawn of the Dead. How does that for a slice of ride?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Tonight on Speaking Cinema, we'll have a good time. I feel alive Wait, what are what what are we doing? In the dead! Right in front of the grave. They're walking around in London town. So don't stop me now.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

You really gotta stop it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Don't stop because it's Shauna the Dead Time! Shauna the Dead Time!

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Keep it keep it going, keep it going, keep it going, then I'm assuming I'm looping through the sky!

SPEAKER_03 1:31

I actually might get flagged for copyright on this one. Yeah, I didn't change the rest of the words. I don't think I think that might be a problem.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

I don't think I mean look, Weird Owl made a whole career out of doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Well, we'll cross this bridge when we get there. Welcome to Speaking Cinema, everybody. I'm Anthony Zaccone sitting here, as always, with John Buley and Adam Sekiko. Speaking Cinema, a podcast where three friends take some of our favorite movies and pull apart the deeper meaning behind them. As I said, this week is a big week for me. We're covering one of my favorite films of all time, Sean of the Dead. Boys, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_04 2:06

I feel like dancing to Don't Stop Me Now through the Alzheimer's Spirit Halloween. That's how I feel right now after watching this film.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

I'm pretty stoked to be here right now. I mean, you know, as of today recording this, yesterday was my birthday, and today's like the first day I'm feeling better after being sick for almost a week, and we're talking about a film that I haven't seen in a long time, but is pitch perfect. So John is in his own way also rising from the dead.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Indeed.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

So, Anthony, you've been teasing this one for a while. I think you uh held the original proprietor of this podcast at Gunpoint demanding to do this film at one point.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

So, why Shaw of the Dead? Something like that. I did uh pitch this to Andrew Schwartz uh when he was hosting the podcast, and uh it was around the 20th anniversary of the film. It was during a Halloween block, and he already had, I believe, you guys for that Halloween block, so couldn't fit it in, couldn't throw in the extra episode. I understand. Uh no shade to Andrew whatsoever. But I think, like I said last week, we're hosting the podcast now, and you can't stop me. So this is, like I said, one of my favorite films of all time. I've often said that if I was gonna teach an intro to filmmaking class and could only use one film, it might be Sean of the Dead. It's structurally a perfect film. It's got not a single wasted frame or line of dialogue. In fact, it's one of the most efficiently written screenplays in terms of dialogue because most of the dialogue used in the first half of the film is then recycled in the second half, verbatim, but with completely different meaning. Every setup has a payoff, every character has an arc, and Edgar Wright demonstrates a dynamic visual technique that would become his signature. Um, meticulous art direction and evocative sound design that just brings the whole thing together. And at this point, when I watch Shawn of the Dead, I've seen this film at least 20 times. But by now, my eyes are mostly just scanning the background. Because as many times as I've watched this movie and laugh and cry along with it every time, as many times as I've watched it, I still manage to find new hidden details just hidden throughout that are homages to other films that I love and the past work of the filmmakers, Edgar Wright and just Simon Pegg. Like it's such a personal movie to them. It's such a labor of love. It's exactly the kind of thing that I would want to pop on just to kill an hour and a half and you know, laugh and have a good time. I I truly can't overstate just how important this movie is to me. So, what about you guys? What's your relationship with Shauna the Dead? What's uh what's the first time you guys saw this?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

I remember the first time I was aware of this film. I think is actually the more important distinction for me because it was, I would say, around 2006 or so. And I remember drawing the conclusion right away that I was like, oh, this came out literally the same time as the Dawn of the Dead remake. And I think it was around that same time that I watched it. I actually don't remember the first time that I watched it, which is really interesting to me because I know I watched it as a kid, but I'm distinctly like way more aware of when it was in this, like the cultural zeitgeist. So I I would venture I saw it when I was like 13, maybe. And I I do remember I loved it because I would always fondly think about it. But I was also, you know, an edgy little emo kid. So I think I uh gravitated towards the more serious one because I was a serious boy. Towards Dawn of the Dead compared to Dawn of the Dead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Right. And then I got therapy. What about you, Adam? When was the first time you saw it?

SPEAKER_04 5:39

Like John, I remember the cultural awareness more than I remember the first time I saw the film. This was very much like the Comedy Central staple. So I remember watching this movie in bits and pieces to start with, no pun intended. But it wasn't really until college that I had a friend group that was very big in a dead, you're right, because Scott Pilgrim had just come out. I think it was my the summer after I graduated high school heading into college, and that movie had flopped, but it was reclaimed very quickly. And I found people that were like, they swore by Scott Pilgrim. And I again I saw Pits and Pieces of Sean, but I'd never watched it in full. So I ended up watching Scott Pilgrim first. And that movie very much became a foundational text for me. Very much so. And so much so that I decided to go back and watch Sean and Hot Fuzz. I don't think uh World's End had been out yet. But I remember watching Sean and almost kicking myself because I watched it straight through actually after years of just watching bits and pieces. Watched it straight through going, I wish I saw this one first. Because as much as I love Scott Pilgrim, and we will cover Scott Pilgrim on this show one day. If it had been reversed, I think Sean would have been more of a foundational text for me than Scott because I'm such a horror guy.

SPEAKER_05 6:47

Right.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

And this is, in my opinion, yeah, sure, Sam Raimi and Joe Dante precede Edgar Wright, but for me, this is the quintessential horror comedy.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Yeah, I can agree with that. I mean, it stands out against other horror comedies because it's not so much a parody, but it is one of the most tightly packed homages to any genre, to the genre that it's trying to, you know, show a love letter for. It's just packed with so many different things from different movies that influence it, including Raimi.

SPEAKER_04 7:15

It's funny because I don't look at this thing as a parody. An homage, absolutely. There's a lot of love here. And this is why to kind of circle back to a previous episode, I love Sean of the Dead, but I hate Scream. Because I always felt like Scream was while we kind of came to the conclusion that maybe there wasn't as much vitriol towards the slasher genre as I had thought initially. There is nothing but love for zombie films in Sean of the Dead. And that love is very infectious throughout this film.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah, and meanwhile, it's also just a coherent genre piece in its own right, as a romantic comedy. Like it's got a compelling story. Like the zombies, the the horror of it is not used as a joke. It's the setting for a very legitimate love story and character arc.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Right. Well, and I think there's also something interesting, too, about the dichotomy between the two films that you mentioned, this being one of them and Scream being the other, but Scream has a lot more of that Gen X cynicism to it. And Sean of the Dead on this watch, I picked up that it it feels a lot more like older millennial kind of film.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Well, for the people that are watching it, sure. I think that the actors contained within would fall under probably Gen X, right.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

But there's definitely a different type of like you can tell a different type of mentality.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Sure. I mean, I take less of it from like the attitude of this one, I take less of it from the generational sensibilities as much as like the cultural sensibilities, with the writers and actors being from England. Yeah. Part of like what drives this is the English attitude of like politeness at any cost and like underselling your problems. Um, like that is the driving force behind this, which is why it's just like, you know, so many zombie movies or horror movies in general take place in the US and have like US-centric resolutions and attitudes. And this one is just like, well, what if the British went through this? And it's surprisingly legitimate. Like you can sort of buy it. Yeah. Yeah. The first time I saw Sean of the Dead was 2004. As I've said before on the pod, my sister worked at a at a movie theater called Flagship Cinemas in in Derry, New Hampshire. I think I remember that one. Yeah. Yeah. So I got to go to a lot of movies for free and sneak into some R-rated ones. They can't fire her. I think it closed years ago. But from the jump, I was obsessed. I grew up watching a lot of British comedy. Um, like Monty Python was a formative text for me. And after seeing Sean of the Dead, that's when I went back and watched the original Romero films. I saw Sean first, and then I was like, wait, what is this based off of? Like John said, it was the same year that Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead came out, which I didn't see that one in theaters, but I bought it on DVD. And I think those two movies were just on repeat for me for like a couple years. I would say that Shawn of the Dead is probably what truly ignited my love for zombie cinema as a whole. And, you know, everything after that that I took in, the zombie survival guide, the The Walking Dead comics, and then eventually the show, like all of that interest stems from Shawn of the Dead. It also inspired my first writing. I one of the first things I wrote was a zombie movie.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

Would you call this your turnkey film? What do you mean? The movie that made you want to make movies.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

I don't think I can say that, because I'll say, like, I grew up with a camera in my hands because my grandfather always shot home movies, and I saw the camera and I was like, I want to do that. So I was just like shooting stuff since I was strong enough to hold the camera. Back then it had a full-size VHS tape in it. It was a big fucking thing. It wasn't so easy for a little kid to lift it up. Like I'd always been interested in it, but I I would say that once I saw Sean of the Dead, I understood what my taste was and what I wanted to focus on from there. And like John, we went to college together. Like, think about it. All every movie I made had influences of Edgar Wright in it. The one that UAD'd with the Sasquatch in it. If you think about some of the shots in that, there's a scene where like two people are in a boardroom and someone's getting fired, and then like they say that his replacement is there and it's me, and I just roll in from the side of frame on a rolling chair, and it's like clear that I'd been there the entire time. Like watching Sean of the Dead. I fucking stole that dude. I stole that right from this movie. So yeah, like introduce me to Edgar Wright, who would become my favorite director for a long time. I'm actually not super caught up on his last couple movies, I'm sorry to say. Edgar, if you're listening, he's not.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

But wait, actually, yeah. Turns out, like I actually uh, Edgar, come in for a second, pal. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

But I did go back and watch his TV show, Spaced, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost also in that, as well as a couple other actors that show up in Shawn of the Dead. And then you can see, you know, the clear line of his work from like this to Hot Fuzz to Scott Pilgrim to Baby Driver. You know, you can really see the evolution of his craft. It inspired me to like really start experimenting visually and with sound design and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 12:42

I'm one of the few who really enjoyed Last Nine in Soho. So I I would recommend that pretty highly. I was all it weirdly enough, I was mixed on Baby Driver. I don't know why. Just something. Yeah. Maybe I just the Kevin Spacey of it all before the Kevin Spacey of it all kind of.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

Maybe. I mean, Baby Driver I saw in theaters and like I loved it the first time, and then the second time I watched it, it was like the novelty of it being cut so much to the music wasn't fresh anymore. You know, so it it lacked like a rewatchability that other films like Sean of the Dead or Hot Fuzz have, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

You know, it's funny because I had a similar feeling watching this for the first time in a while after having seen some of Edgar Wright's later films. I remembered thinking that on this watch, going, like, I could watch this over and over and over again, but I don't think I've seen Baby Driver since it left theaters.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Yeah, I watched it during the pandemic, like at home. And, you know, like the first time I saw that in theaters, and like, you know, the idea of them like cutting and syncing the whole thing to a playlist. Yeah. Like you can definitely see his like primordial idea for that with Shauna the Dead and Hot Fuzz and World's End. And then like it became fully fledged in Baby Driver, but it almost, you know, in my opinion, it's like it took it one step too far because that became the entire premise of the film. And that, like, that's why once you see it, you're like, oh wow. And then the second time you're like, all right, but the story is actually, you know, sort of mild. All right, so let's get into the overall take. So here we try to put together in the simplest words possible, what do we think this movie is about? So who wants to go first and tell me what do you think Shaun of the Dead is really about?

SPEAKER_04 14:25

On its surface, the movie is very much about growing up. Um, as most of Egarite's films are, they deal with the kind of pitfalls of arrested emotional development. I feel if you go a little bit deeper than that, this is a film about losing your parents. Okay. And having to kind of find the world without them. The two big hammer blow deaths that this film has is Sean's stepfather, Philip, which in a scene that foreshadows the emotional demo of the film, and we'll talk about that in Scenic View, and then the death of Sean's mom in the pub, which kind of brings his arc full circle. And it's almost like that tragedy of losing both your parents essentially in a brief period of time and kind of forcing you to kind of figure shit out in the moment. While again, surface level arrested emotional development, but that's kind of every Edgarite film. Sure. But I think the deeper layer here is it's a film about dealing with the loss of both parents and trying to figure life out on your own.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

What about you, John? What do you think Sean of the Dead is about?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

It's definitely about growing up, like Adam said. I had this small kind of half-baked theory on it. I lean towards it being about growing up, um, because that's all pretty apparent. But I do find it interesting watching it through this lens of the 90s critiques. You know, like the like the fight club type of films were like the worst thing, like the worst thing you could do is like be a sellout and get some job that you hate just so you can pay more bills and things like that. But because it's set in 2004 and we've got the global war on terror going on, we have this apocalyptic backdrop to what would otherwise be like one of the most mundane conflicts in the world. And I don't think the filmmakers intended for this at all, but I did kind of have this half-baked theory on that of like, oh yeah, this is like one of the last films of that period before 9-11 that just happened to get made right after everything changed. Like I said, I don't have like a total like you pull this souffle out of the oven, it's gonna collapse.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

Can I piggyback off with something though? Yeah. This is what happens when you've been dropping out for the majority of your life and all of a sudden it becomes tiresome. Like these are the kinds of guys, Ed more than Sean, but you feel like Sean, again, they're both tied at the hip, and maybe Sean was a bit more like Ed, and now he's starting to kind of find himself a little bit more. But this is what happens, like when all of a sudden that fight club ideology collapses on itself, and all of a sudden you're like, oh fuck, I do have to find a job. Yeah. Oh, I really do like this girl and I want it to work. Okay, fuck, this isn't working for me anymore.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

That's fine. So let's get right into the title take then. What do you think the title, Sean of the Dead, is about?

SPEAKER_04 17:09

I think, again, you can look at it as a pastiche and a tribute to Dawn of the Dead, you know, Dawn, Sean, they rhyme, it sets up, it's clever. But I do think it's kind of a title like, you know, how you would refer to it like knights, you know, your name and of what family you were from. And Anthony, to your point, and kind of going off of your take, you know, Sean of the Dead, he was already of the dead before the zombies started coming around. So it's Sean representing the dead. It just so happens this movie happens to be about zombies at one point. But he's dead before the dead start rising.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

Yeah, I I was thinking along the same line. Like, there's the obvious answer, which is that it's just a pun for Dawn of the Dead. Sort of like we talked about with Knight of the Living Dead, where Ben, you know, like the line between the living and the dead is blurred by the end of the film, where you can't you have people who are incoherent, can't think for themselves. Half of the people that are alive have already died. Like, that's at the end of the film. With Sean of the Dead, it's the opposite. It's like everyone is sort of just walking through life brain dead, and it's up to Sean to wake up and get out of his routine and actually become a man of action instead of a man of complacency. There is a an original title, like the working title for the film when they were writing it, which was Tea Time of the Dead, which is more in line with Romero's like night, yeah, dawn, day sort of uh naming system. But yeah, I mean, John, I want to hear about your title take before we pull that apart, because I have some questions for you guys. But John, what is your title take?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

I'm gonna be one of those people to showcase that just because I'm the smartest man in the world doesn't mean I have the wrong take once in a while. I think for me, because Sean of the Dead was so ubiquitous with what that film was for so long, that it just kind of became something I didn't think about. And so I always just took it as a parody title. And hearing you guys talk about it now makes me realize just because you can be uh the best brain surgeon in the world doesn't mean you know shit about movies. John, we host a podcast. This is what we do.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

You've been weeks. Weeks. How many times have you run the toilet? You could have been just thinking about that.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

And I was worried too. I was worried about my title take being like, oh God, the all of us are kind of the same take. I got I gotta think about this. I gotta I was on the toilet before thinking about what I thought the title was.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

What's what's my take? My take's I'm an idiot. So John's got the nihilistic take. The title means nothing. Um let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

No, I think you you I mean, you guys are spot on. Like there it this film is so brilliant. There is so much more there than it just being a parody title. I again, I think for me it was just the it's one of the rare instances where I've heard the title so many times that it just yeah, it kind of sounded like it stopped sounding. It's like when you say banana a a million times, it stops being a banana.

SPEAKER_04 20:11

Yeah. Interesting to eat.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

I like I'll I'll concede that too. I mean, like, as many times as I've seen the movie, like I I never did really sit and think about it until for this podcast. And and you know, like it's elegant in its simplicity of like the meaning shifts with the addition of a comma, like Sean, comma of the dead, and it's like, oh, yeah, that yeah, that's it. He's one of the living dead until he decides to be an adult man. Let's talk about Tea Time of the Dead. If the movie had stayed Tea Time of the Dead, do you think that would change the inherent meaning of that title? Do you think it changes it for better or for worse? Yeah, 100%. When do they drink tea? Also, this movie's tea several times.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

They do, actually, yes. A couple times. But no, uh, this movie's already British enough. It doesn't need that title.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

It's the last time I watch a movie with 102 degree fever. See, all right, so we're getting he's healthy now, but we're his notes are all fever hallucinations. So yeah, buckle up. He will we watch a different movie entirely.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

It wouldn't be a good one.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

But see, the contrast between Sean is a slacker who's dead in some ways socially and Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, you guys are right. I shouldn't be writing notes when I'm sick.

unknown 21:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

But yeah, how do you think Tea Time of the Dead would change people's perception of the film?

SPEAKER_04 21:34

I think it's too cute, I feel like. I'm I'm one, I'm glad that they changed it. This movie, it's weird because it crossed over in a way that maybe it wasn't designed to. Like again, I made the joke that this is a this movie's already British enough, but this is a very British movie, Anthony. To your point, that a lot of you know the cultural sensibility is the fact that this is an English film. Though I do think that the Shawn of the Dead title Invites other audiences to welcome it because oh, like Dawn of the Dead. I know Dawn of the Dead. I love that 70s movie and then that 2000s movie that came shortly thereafter. It's about zombies. I love zombies. There's more of a welcomingness to it. Where T Tum of the Dead, I can just hear some redneck asshole being like, damn pansy British. You ain't getting my money to watch your movie about stupid British zombies.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Yeah, T?

SPEAKER_04 22:25

You mean that shit we threw in the harbor? See, at least you're more regional specific than me.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

I mean, those are our hometown heroes. I also wonder, too, if part of the success Donna that or Shauna the Dead had early on stemmed from the fact that it had a title that essentially rhymed from a remake that came out at the exact same time.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah, which was probably unintentional that the remake came out at the same time, but it was a boon for the film that they happened to go that way. Maybe they did change it to be more in line with that if they overlapped in theaters. I think the Sean gives it more recognizability as like an homage. Yeah. Tea Time of the Dead, you know, like we said with the American sensibility, like tea time to me makes me think of like, you know, little girl tea party. Like tea time for the British is like a regular daily occurrence. Like tea time for Americans, it feels like something you do with a like a child, like with a little plastic playset.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

Also makes me think of golf. Yeah. It confuses the meaning.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

Yeah. And I feel like it also, I think that Tea Time of the Dead, because it feels a little cutesier, like it makes it sound more like a direct parody, where I would consider what this is a very genuine zombie film. But Tea Time sounds more like a joke.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Well, and also Tea Time sounds like an extension into the genre itself. What do you mean? Like Tea Time sounds like it could have been a Romero film. Yeah. Whereas Shawn of the Dead absolutely gets people in those seats that they otherwise wouldn't have. Because that was right around the time the scary movie films were also really hitting their stride too. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Was Scary Movie 3, was that 2004 or was that 2006?

SPEAKER_04 24:16

That was around the same time.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah. Because I know there was one scary movie that I saw.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Scary Movie 3 came out in 2003, Scary Movie 4 came out in 2006.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Okay, so I saw I remember I saw Scary Movie 4 like three times in theaters. But yeah, so I guess that would track if Scary Movie 3 was 2003 and then Sean of the Dead is 2004, like is right on the timeline of like the horror parody.

SPEAKER_04 24:42

Yeah, so definitely got a boost from that. Also, Scary Movie 3, the best of the scary movies.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

Yeah, yeah, I would say scary movie three I saw several times in theaters.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

If sometimes like this, I wonder what President Ford would have done. What about Second Breakfast of the Dead?

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Elevensies of the Dead.

SPEAKER_04 24:58

Dinner, Supper, surely if we're those.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

Alright, let's jump into the opening images. So here I'm gonna walk you through the first few minutes of Shawn of the Dead. The film opens on the universal logo, accompanied by a haunting score that plays over a montage of production company title cards. If that music sounds familiar, it should. It's lifted directly from Dawn of the Dead, immediately planting us inside the DNA of the zombie genre. But that eerie tone is quickly interrupted by the sound of sirens, and the first needle drop hits Ghost Town by the specials. It's here that we need our title character. Sean sits in a dingy pub, staring blankly into the camera. He takes a sip of his beer, a drag from his cigarette, completely disengaged, until a voice pulls him out of it. Sean. He snaps back to reality. Sitting across from him is his girlfriend Liz, who is trying, likely not for the first time, to have a real conversation. She tells him she wants more quality time together, without Sean's friend Ed constantly hanging around. Behind them, Ed is exactly where he always is, half paying attention, playing a game on a video machine, chiming in at all the wrong moments. As Liz makes her case, the film quietly proves her right in real time. She explains that because Ed is always there, she feels obligated to bring her flatmates along too, which only exacerbates things. The camera shifts, revealing her friends, David and Di, sitting at the table with them, silently listening the entire time. Sean tries to defend himself. It's not that he doesn't like them, he just feels bad for Ed. Ed doesn't have many friends, and right on cue, Ed pops into the conversation and demonstrates exactly why that is. David and Di push back gently but firmly. Relationships take effort. You have to make time for each other. Die suggests that they go somewhere nice for their anniversary. Sean hesitates, and then we learn they already had their anniversary last week, and they spent it exactly where they are right now. The Winchester, at the same pub, the same routine, night after night. Ed calls out to Sean and tosses him a bag of snacks, which smack him directly in the face. Liz keeps going. They've been together for three years, and she wants something more than this. More than the same place. The same night, the same life on Reapy. Sean, chewing awkwardly on his hog lumps, finally concedes. He promises her things will change. Tomorrow, they'll go somewhere nice. That place that does all the fish. Liz smiles, hopeful, but not convinced. As the bartender shouts for last call, we are treated to another needle drop, the Blue Wrath by Eye Monster. Then we are shown the world around Sean as the title montage begins. A grocery store worker pushes a line of shopping carts. Cashiers scan items with vacant expressions. The commuters stand in silence as they wait for a bus. They all check their phones simultaneously. A crowd shuffles down a narrow alley. A boy idly bounces a soccer ball against the pavement. Every movement slow, mechanical, repetitive, and in perfect sync with the music. The choreography is unmistakable. They look like zombies. But they're not, not yet, at least. Finally, we see a pair of bare feet dragging across a dirty floor. The camera tilts up to reveal Sean stumbling forward, groaning as he wakes, half asleep, half alive. This is the first day of the rest of his life.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Alright, so what do you guys think of this opening? This opening, as we talked about like what the film means, it really does set up perfectly literally everything we've talked about. We've been both told and in some ways shown uh just how juvenile he can be in terms of his greater mentality on like the big picture. But we also see how he himself is literally one of the living dead, just going through the motions of his life, not doing anything more than really just existing. You know, like we alluded to earlier. I mean, there is not an ounce of fat on this screenplay. And this opening really does perfectly set up exactly what this whole thing is about.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

Yeah, I tried to watch like interviews and whatnot before we get in as part of research, and I didn't do as much as I wanted to this time initially, though I did come across one thing that when they were writing the screenplay, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg had two rules that they set for themselves. The first was the zombies were not to be played for comedy, and the second was we were not to leave Sean's perspective throughout the entire film, which they only break one time for narrative convenience. So what this opening does essentially it's putting you in the headspace of Sean. You know, you're not entering literally as they're entering the Winchester, you're not getting a sense of the space. You're literally dropped in media res mid-conversation, because Liz is literally in the middle of a conversation, while Sean is just staring off in the middle of nowhere. You're not knowing what he's thinking, but you're in his head space. And the second that that conversation kicks in, you're kind of just as lost as Sean is, to be honest. And you're picking up information as he's picking up information. So it's a great use of filmmaking, great, you know, way of establishing the intent of the filmmaker, which is we're all Sean to an extent.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Yeah. I think that first shot of him just staring into camera and he takes a drink of beer and a drag from that cigarette, like you learn so much about him just in that, and then him getting snapped out of it with his name. Like you learn so much about like who this guy is, how he spends his time, and that he's not someone who pays attention. He's sort of daydreamy sort of person. Not daydreamy, but just zoned out, like a bit of a space cadet. Yeah. Well, I think the scene could come off as quite expository, like it's very dense with setup. It doesn't feel expository in the way of like pilot episode of a sitcom where it's like character shows up, says their name, says two main character traits, and then leaves. Yeah. You could 100% buy this as a normal conversation between a man and a woman in a relationship. Like you learn everything that you need to about these characters that David is sort of a sad sec and has too many opinions about their relationship. Dai is overly optimistic and a little naive. Ed is a dirty bastard who is sort of a drag on the people around him, even if he might be Sean's best friend and, you know, occasionally a good time. Like you learn all of the main traits that will become important for each individual character's arc, all in the span of a conversation. And that takes care of most of the main cast. The only main characters that you don't get in this scene are Bill Nyes, Philip, and Sean's mom.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

And spoiler, my favorite part of this movie, and we're gonna get to this scenic view. My favorite part of this movie might be the relationship between Ed and Barbara. Yeah. Because they're they're off in their own little movie. I feel like it's at various points. Hi, Edward. Hi, Barbara.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it does a great job of setting the table. I think that montage is important. Like it could be seen as filler, but I feel like that is what illustrates the thesis when it comes to like me and Adam and our takes on it. Like, I think that is what solidifies it by showing even the living are sort of the walking dead, you know, going through their own routines and, you know, boring lifestyles. And, you know, when you look around at the people in the bar, the people that, you know, maybe don't work anymore, just show up to the same bar every night, silently drinking a pint of beer until they, you know, shamble their way home, like those people aren't really living. Like they, in a way, you know, are the walking dead. We're all the walking dead in our own little way.

SPEAKER_04 32:29

I mean, it's that's the opening montage essentially just tone setting. Like you pretty much get the entire movie in a microcosm before everything starts happening. If you think about it, it's definitely, you know, if the opening scene with Sean, Liz, and everybody at the Winchester is to put you in the mindset of Sean. The opening credit montage is the audience's way being like, all right, and this is the ride you're in we're foreshadowing the ride that you're about to take.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Yeah, and this film is masterful in its foreshadowing and the way, again, like the the setup and payoff. Like everything that has a setup in this film has a payoff by the end of the film. And we will get into all that in the scenic view, which we should do right now. Hell yeah. Let's jump in, boys. So here we are at the scenic view. At this point in the show, we like to jump around the movie, pick out scenes that either prove our thesis, stand out to us, or just scenes that we really like. We don't have to go in any particular order. We're just gonna bop around and see where the wind takes us. So give me a scene. Let's talk about one.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

I mean, I wouldn't mind starting with the breakup. With the breakup.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Okay. Because I I feel like that's look, while there's other things that kind of highlight Sean's life and obviously the rough day that he's having leading up to his ultimate falling out with his, you know, his girlfriend. She says something in that scene that kind of highlights what we've been talking about up to now, which is kind of her kiss-off line to Sean, which is if I don't do something, I'm gonna end up in that bar every night drinking myself to death.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

Wondering what the hell happened.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Yeah, no, I see exactly where you're going here.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Which is where Sean is right now and is in danger of becoming a permanent fixture. And Liz, who's kind of offered Sean this lifeline of I'm trying to get you away from that life. Not that she's a prude, not that she, you know, she loves Ed in her own way. David and Di, maybe not as much, but Liz does. She's accepting of them. But she also sees Ed for what he is, which is kind of the guy holding Sean back from moving forward in the way he's supposed to. And while, you know, she's there and she's been supportive, it's obvious that Sean's stopping doing the work. Look, I'm in a relationship. Anthony, you're in a relationship. You know that that does take work, and it's not always fun work. And it's not the fact that Sean's not even doing the hard work, he's not even doing the fun stuff anymore. The impetus for the breakup is the anniversary dinner that Sean forgets to book the reservation for and ends up in a mad panic of like, oh shit, I blew the reservation. Uh, where are we going? The Winchester?

SPEAKER_03 35:06

Yeah, like that promise is just one promise too many that he broke. And you're right, like that line is if I don't do something, I'll end up like one of those poor fools, you know, whatever, wondering what the hell happened. And that could also be like we could have done that for an overall take of the film. If you don't get up and face your problems directly and make a change, the longer you put it off, the less likely you will be able to change. Something along that lines. I think you're 100% right. There's another scene, the one where he's um talking to the other employees of the electronic shop that he works at, 40 electronic. And um he says to one of the younger guys, like, I have stuff that I want to do with my life too. And the kid says, When? Like that sort of backs that up of like at some point you can't just, you know, roll through life. You have to actually make direct action to become the person you want to be.

SPEAKER_04 36:03

And I kind of like to piggyback off of that. I like that we don't get an idea of what Sean's ambitions are, maybe because he doesn't have any, but he alludes that in that scene. Like, I I want to do stuff when? More specifically, what? And I like that though about the film where it's not like he doesn't give a soliloquy about like all the plans I had, because he doesn't really fucking have any plans. He just knows he doesn't want to work in an electronic store his entire life. Yeah. Maybe that's the extent of his plans.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Yeah, and we'll sort of get to that when we get to the closing because I feel like the way that the movie ends hammers that point in, is like you don't have to have like crazy big save the world plans, just like a plan. You know, something.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

And that's the thing I think Liz is looking for out of Sean is like, she's like, look, I don't want you to become a rocket scientist. I don't want you to sit here and say that I wanna, I don't know, be a writer or something, which is what most hacky films end up doing. But like have a plan. Let's start with set up a dinner. Can can you do that? Let's set up a dinner for tomorrow night. Yeah, just do something. Yeah, do something.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Anything, any amount of effort. Yeah. Well, and also the idea too that like he could even still be working at that job. He just has to be an adult in every other facet of his life. Like, I think a lot of times this is a a brief aside, but it's I feel like it's the same problem we have in society of like why we don't want to play pay burger flippers a living wage, or why there's people who are opposed to that. It's like it's like as long as there's a need for electronics, there will be a need for people to work at those electronic stores to sell them. Yeah. And even if most people are like young kids coming in and out, you still need somebody who's a bit more of an adult to manage them and wrangle them. Like that's still a job.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

But be an adult in every other capacity.

SPEAKER_03 37:49

Yeah, but like even if you're a burger flipper, right? Like if you're a burger flipper for 20 years, that's a choice, right? If you're a burger flipper and then you're an assistant manager and then you're a manager, yeah, and then you're corporate, right? Like, well, that job is a burger flipper. That's a plan. Yeah, like you moved up, you're probably making Buku bucks after, you know, a certain threshold there. Like, there's no shame in that. But the point is, like, you know, how long do you want to just be a salesman, you know, while everyone around you is 17 years old and you don't like go for the promotion? Work at 40 electronics, which is, by the way, uh, or 40 electronics is a reference to Ken Forey, who played Peter in Dawn of the Dead, the name of the electronic shop. Also, the manager Ash, who's sick, is uh a reference to Ash from Evil Dead. But yeah, like if you want to work at 40 electronic, work there. But after a point, like you gotta, you know, show some initiative and some responsibility and move up and not just, you know, sort of glide through life. Yeah. All right. What uh what about another scene, John?

SPEAKER_01 38:54

You go on? Yeah, so this is one that's a bit smaller, but it kind of did inform my uh half-baked souffle on the uh, you know, pre-9-11 problems in a post-9-11 world. And that is the duplicate one takes that we have. Right. Yeah. Because with the first one, we have Sean, he gets out of his apartment and he just kind of stumbles through. He gets kicked by the soccer ball kid, he gives the shuffling guy spare change, and it almost shows this like somewhat peaceful, idyllic kind of world-like part of London that he's living in. It's like, it's a nice place to live, and nothing's wrong with it at all. He stumbles over the sidewalk because he's just kind of half in it, doesn't really care what's going on, and then we fast forward. And it's the same exact long take, but now it's just the living dead shuffling around. There's trash everywhere, there's garbage, there's blood. There is a catastrophe that has occurred here. For me, that was just such a brilliant way to do a pre and post catastrophe setup to show us the same exact walk that this guy does day in and day out to his little corner store, and he doesn't even notice that the world has changed at this point because he's just so like he's just so dead and so in his own world.

SPEAKER_04 40:21

And I like the fact too that it's not even like there's the moment in like the second one or where he goes, Oh, wait a minute. So like it literally plays out entirely. There could have been that last beat at the end where he finds out, no, he just goes right back to his flat, you know, goes, you know, back into the house, and it's not until Ed points out there's a woman in the yard. And even then he doesn't know. It takes them until the other guy shows up to realize, okay, no, I tell a lie. It's not until the woman accidentally gets impaled and then just comes up like something's nothing's happened that they realize I think something's wrong. Like it takes them that long.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

Yeah, like there's a couple hints. Like in the first time that that scene plays out, he sees the stack of newspapers. And if you look at the headlines on the newspapers, it's got everything from contaminated crops, radiation from a downed satellite, a mystery virus, uh havoc, and mutilated remains. And he like lingers on it for a second, but he still doesn't register. And like you would think that in that second one, like it does a great job of very quickly speeding through the acceleration of the issue. Yeah. Like again, it's just super efficient filmmaking. Like, you see all those little bits that he notices, like the guy trying to eat a pigeon, and like when he's buying flowers, like the dude running scared. But you like as a viewer, like get a sense of the escalation of the pandemic or apocalypse or whatever you might want to call it. But even though he doesn't notice the zombie, there is one minor change between the two that I think back up what point we're trying to make here in a certain way, which is that the first time he does it, he goes to the cooler and he gets himself a can of Coca-Cola. The second time he does it, even though he's still completely oblivious to what's happening around him, he goes and he grabs the Coca-Cola and he looks at it and then he puts it back and he gets a Diet Coke. And I think that that is brilliant and effective in showing that you don't have to change your whole ass life overnight. But like, you know, really making yourself better and like changing yourself for the better is incremental steps and just like one step at a time. Yeah. And just him making that one decision for his health is the little thing that kick starts his whole character arc of trying to be a more adult, more serious person who takes care of himself and like handles business, even if he's still completely oblivious to zombies, like almost getting him. That the homeless dude with you had the dog, like inches away from him.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Yeah. Almost would have been a hell of a lot shorter movie.

SPEAKER_04 43:13

Yeah. It's weird because you brought up uh I think Freudian Slip, you said pandemic as opposed to apocalypse. Um I mean because I have a story. Historically speaking. I have a story though that kind of like kind of ties all this in personally because unlike everybody else who was quarantined during COVID, I worked through COVID. Mm-hmm. Because I was an essential worker. Yeah, you did. And it sucked.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

If I had a pot, I would I would bang it.

SPEAKER_04 43:39

You you would bang it. No, I I delivered mail. I was not a healthcare worker. I do not deserve the pot banging.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Yeah, I I banged my pots for the male men and women of this country. I didn't bang a single thing or person. Ten out of ten would bang a male man. Thank you. What wait, hang on. Save a save. The male banger man.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

But it it's it's weird because I can relate to Sean's headspace during COVID because my life really didn't change all that much. Except I wasn't going down to edit weddings after I got done with the mail because that job was not long for this world. But I would get up, I go to the post office, I do my shit, I'd go back home. And then all of a sudden one day the world shut down, but my life kept going as is. So I get up, I go to the post office, I do my shit, and then I come home. But the only difference now is everything was completely barren and empty. And it's almost like I didn't realize or notice, and that's why my mindset is a little different because while I do have some COVID fog and it does feel like the rest of us, we lost a year of our lives. My life kept going and it kind of fucked my psyche in that regard because it's like, oh yeah, I kind of worked through the apocalypse to a degree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

Yeah, right. You you were Kevin Costner, the postman. I was.

SPEAKER_04 45:02

That movie was about me. Yeah. When I was seven years old.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Did you guys notice any of the cool background stuff in these scenes? There are a whole bunch of references just in these couple scenes. And I I'm gonna say I think that I have put together possibly the most comprehensive list of references held within this film that exists. Like I've scoured the internet and I've sort of like conglomerated different information and then found a few of my own that weren't on those lists. Um, so I'm gonna try to pepper the show with some of them, just a bunch of fun facts. The pizza place behind Nelson's shop is Bub's Pizza for the for Bub, the zombie and Day of the Dead. The newspaper headlines, the radiation from Down Satellite, that's Night of the Living Dead. Uh, the public health threat from genetically modified crops is um from let sleeping corpses lie. The new superflu, I am unsure what that might specifically be. I'm not sure if that one's a very specific reference, but there's one very cool one, which is in the second iteration of the scene. That Nelson is presumably Indian. He's got Hindi music in the background, and like when Sean walks away from the bloody handprint cooler and the music cuts out and a radio bulletin comes on, it's in Hindi. And I had my buddy Shajed translate it for me. Uh, shout out Shajed Hassan. Um, thank you for doing this for me. The Hindi uh radio bulletin says, Urgent bulletin. Dead people are waking up from their graves and attacking living people, which is a reference to the opening scene of John Carpenter's The Thing, where like there's the Norwegian helicopter crew and they're like shooting at a dog. In Norwegian, they say, get the hell away from that thing. That's not a dog, it's some sort of thing. It's imitating a dog, it isn't real. Get away, you idiots. So if you were Norwegian watching the American version of the film, that the whole plot is spoiled in the first minute for you. So that Hindi broadcast, like saying the answer to it, is in its own way a little nod to the thing. Wow. Even though I wouldn't consider the thing a zombie movie, would you guys? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 47:27

Not really, no. It's that's it's definitely a creature feature.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

But I mean, like the references don't just go to zombies specifically in Sean of the Dead. There's a few just like general horror uh references in there. But I thought that was a cool one. And I didn't find anything about that one online anywhere. I just had a buddy that spoke the language. I'm like, hey dude, can you help me out with this from this project? All right, I get a scene for you. How about the scene after the breakup where Sean is crying at the Winchester and Ed is trying to make him feel better? He says, you know what we should do tomorrow? We should keep drinking. And he goes on this little monologue. He says, We'll have a Bloody Mary first thing, have a bite at the King's Head, couple at the Little Princess, stagger back here, bang, back at the bar for shots. How's that for a slice of fried gold? I assume you guys know where I'm going with that. Do you? Assume we don't. Oh, okay. Well, here we go. So this little monologue foreshadows the entire film, right? Bloody Mary, the first zombie that the two guys encounter is the girl in the garden who's got a name tag that says Mary. Which is also another homage because the name tag shop is uh it says Landis, and Londis is a common grocery store in London. But Landis is for John Landis, who directed the thriller music video, directed American Werewolf London, also incidentally beheaded a person one time and two kids. Yeah, story for another episode, but you know, pointing to the zombie film. A bite at the king's head, Sean goes to rescue his mom. His stepdad Philip is bitten in the neck, a couple at the little princess. Their next stop after Sean's mom is Liz's house, where they also pick up David and die. A couple, Liz is the little princess. They stagger back here, they evade the horde of zombies by mimicking them, shambling and moaning, and then bang back at the bar for shots. They hole up in the Winchester and use the gun hanging above the bar to shoot zombies as they break through the windows. And then that line has that for a slice of fried gold, is also recycled later the next time they have to make a plan, but like a serious plan about what, you know, once the zombies sort of interrupt their day drinking. I'm surprised you guys have never heard of that. It's like one of the most famous examples of like foreshadowing because it goes completely unnoticed. It doesn't immediately ring as obvious. Yeah. Um, but what it's one of those things that, like, for filmmaker trivia, like once you figure it out, it's like, oh, that fucking rocks.

SPEAKER_04 49:53

Oh, absolutely. But it's also uh there's some movies that again, my favorite movie is Die Hard. But I know very little about the production of that film because I don't like the idea of like, I want just watch as a film. And Sean of the Dead is one of those, and actually, not just Sean of the Dead, the other Cornetto films, as well as Scott Pilgrim. I'm like, I don't want to know. As a filmmaker, I can pick up certain tricks and traits and all that good stuff. But like, because again, another personal story. When I was in full sale, I had a professor who literally his intent was when we're done with you, you're gonna hate movies. Yeah. Why? Because you're gonna know everything that everybody's gonna do and fucking everything and this and that, and you're just gonna not like movies anymore. And me being the obnoxious little shithel that I was, I'm like, fuck you. Why am I in film school then? If I'm not gonna love movies. Now, granted, I do have a bit of a vernacular when I watch films, and I can notice things. Most can't, because I'm studied, but there are those few select films I'm like, you know what? The film school handbook out the fucking window. I'm just gonna sit here and I'm going to enjoy the fucking ride. And Sean is one of those films. Uh Everything Everywhere All at Once is a more recent film. I'm like, I don't want to know anything about the production. I don't want to know how the sausage was made. I love this movie too much. I want to enjoy this as a fan.

SPEAKER_03 51:18

Yeah, I mean it like again, this is why I think that like as far as a film goes for like teachability, Shawn of the Dead is a very good choice to go off of. Like from story structure, like it does foreshadow the whole thing, but it buries it under a level of metaphor. Yeah. It's not intending to tell you what this whole thing is about, right? It's something that you can enjoy on like your second or third rewatch when you're like, oh, whoa. Right. But it is, it is also simultaneously happening during, we're talking about film school, the Chekhov's gun scene. Right? Chekhov's gun theory, meaning like if in the first act there is a gun above the mantle, it will go off by the third act. There is literally a gun on the mantle.

SPEAKER_05 52:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

The thing is, nobody believes that it works. And you know, we find out later that it totally does. But like, you're right. I like once you really watch films enough, like Chekhov's gun doesn't have to literally be a gun. It's just like some item that they like really make a point of showing you in the first you like now watching a movie, it's like that thing's gonna be important later.

SPEAKER_04 52:38

All right, so following Sean's arc, I guess the next scene we should talk about is Philip's death scene and also a little bit of Philip himself, because there's a runner in the first part of this film where Sean's stepfather comes around and everyone's like, Hey, your dad's here, and Sean's like, he's not my dad, making it very clear to everybody, he's not my dad, he's my stepdad. And it shows that they've had maybe a bit of a contentious relationship that may have had an effect on Sean's upbringing and his current state in life. I guess maybe Philip big leagued him a couple times. There's definitely one instance where Sean was fucking around with his jag and got chased around the, you know, the yard with Philip, you know, waving a bit of wood at him, basically, is how he put it. So it's obvious that to the point too, earlier on where they're going through the montage of how that what they're gonna do. The first step is well, Philip's been bitten, so we kill Philip. Yeah, there's he's so ready. It's obvious how gleeful of a thought process. Yeah, he's so ready to just kill a stepfather until this the moment comes where, all right, he's gotten bit. And I and I love Bill Knight, the little lines, oh Barbara, for God's sake, I'm fine. I ran under a cold tap. Yeah, which is such an old man thing to say. It's like, I'm fine with this wound I got.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

A British old man thing to do. Like, and Barbara too. Like, I didn't want to be a bother.

SPEAKER_04 54:04

Right under a cold tap. Yeah. But the the point being is Sean, even despite his misgivings and trying to talk himself into it, Sean eventually can't bring himself to kill his stepfather. So they load him into a car after he's actually gotten bit bit, you know, during another zombie attack. And there's a moment in all the chaos that Philip is trying to get Sean's attention, but Sean's trying to, okay, look, stop playing the music, don't crash into people. And but you know, Philip is still like, Sean, Sean, please, I gotta tell you something. And Sean inadvertently snaps him, and in a moment that could have gone horribly wrong in the hands of a lesser director, because this is a complete tonal shift within the span of the scene. Yeah. Well, Bill Nye is literally telling him, like, you know, it's not easy being a father. And and, you know, you met me when you were 12 and you had already grown up so much. And Sean's trying to be like, no, look, it's it's not your fault. Like, you did what you could. And they have this really gentle moment before Philip passes, and he's like, Listen, you we always knew you had it in you. You just need a little bit more motivation. And I thought that I could be, you know, the kind of man you could look up to, and and I'm sorry, and I've always loved you and take care of your mom. And it's a genuinely touching moment in the middle of all of this craziness, and you're going, wait a minute, where is this coming from? And shout out to to Nae and to Peg and to Wright for the direction. Because again, this scene, I've seen other people try to replicate this.

SPEAKER_05 55:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:28

And it kills a scene stone dead. It's like, okay, what the f you you're just like mowing over zombies, and now you're expecting to buy into this emotional scene, you know, what the hell? But because everything cuts out systematically, and it they let the acting breathe. And I've alluded to this a couple times on the show where it's like the movie that happens between the scenes or that happens off camera. We get a sense of the relationship, Philip and Sean's, without having seen all of it. You know, Bill Nye is in one scene before they come to collect Barbara and Philip, them being Ed and Sean, but that's it. We have a a sense of their relationship. We can put two and two together, but we don't we didn't see all of it.

SPEAKER_05 56:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:12

And yet somehow, and I'm gonna go back to this later with Barbara and Ed of all characters, because through like little microactions and little microcosms, they're able to sell you that scene as an audience by making it look very easy. And whereas it would have taken you out of the film, I think, in a worst case, in a way, this brings you more into the film.

SPEAKER_03 56:37

Yeah, I think there is one important setup, and like again, this is why, like, there I think that there truly is not an ounce of fat on this movie, is because in earlier in the film, when Pete is still alive and he tells Sean that he's gonna deal with Ed, like Sean goes and tries to do that, and Ed is playing a video game, and as Sean is trying to tell him to do something, he keeps getting distracted by the video game. And I think this scene is also, aside from like this intensely emotional exchange with Philip, like this is another click point in Sean's incremental changes because it's the first one where he he like yells at Ed and he says, Stop telling me to calm down. Everything is not okay. Like he stops putting up with Ed's shit and actually tells him what he wants Ed to do, just pull over, right? He stops letting Ed walk all over him as this thing, like this moment changes him. You know, not like something that he probably even processes is happening, but Sean's going through something and that experience changes him. And you're 100% like how genuine this whole exchange is. Like Phillips' last words are so beautiful and sad, he just says, There's a good boy. You know, like it's it you you get the sense. I don't think it's maybe the first time Phillips ever said that to him, but it's the first time Sean heard it. Yeah. You know, before that, he was just completely resolved in the childish behavior of hating your stepdad. And this sort of fit like bolsters my overall take, right? Like if you sleepwalk through life, you won't notice the apocalypse until it's knocking on your front door. Like his inability to reconcile with his stepfather or just like come to see each other as adults. By the time he has the opportunity here to do something to fix it, it's sort of too little too late. Maybe not too little because like it has a formative impact on Sean, but like would have been nice to do it while Philip was alive.

SPEAKER_04 58:46

I mean, to kind of merge our takes, I guess, for a lack of a better term. You're right. I think that Philip did tell him this a bunch of times, and Sean just was too juvenile to acknowledge it. But the fact that like it happened now, at the literal, and I'm sure Sean thinking like, oh my God, like again, movie in between the scenes or even off camera, Sean having to live with that the rest of his life. My God, the things we could have done if, you know, I understood that earlier. But the important thing is, and this is, you know, for Sean's development going forward, it doesn't matter that it was said too late, it's the fact that it was said at all. And more importantly, the fact that Sean heard it. Might have taken him, you know, a number of years, but now he finally learned it and now he's armed with that knowledge.

SPEAKER_03 59:34

For sure. Yeah, like I see this as cautionary, you know, like you as the listener, it's like, if you have somebody to apologize to, just do it now. You know, don't wait because you don't know if it's gonna be too late. Like it is so important that it did happen at all for Sean, like you're saying, but it's just something that we can like, you know, it's it's never too late to try to make amends with whoever you might, you know, have hurt in your past.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:01

Something I found really interesting about this film before we hop into a scene that I would also want to discuss. I don't know if it's because the film is British humor that it works so well, but like we talked about with Philip's death, throwing something that serious into a film where you're literally seconds before mowing zombies over in in a car would be such whiplash and it would be such a tonal shift that it would feel so out of left field. But I think what surprised me the most about this film on this re-watch was that while I wouldn't say that it's not as funny, it's not as funny as I remember it being in a subtle kind of way. Like I remember I was expecting myself to be just like bowling over laughing, and instead I remember on this latest watch, I thought, this is a lot more subtle. And the conflicts through and through are never comedic style conflicts. They all have a real drama to them. Whereas in like a lot of American comedies, a lot of the drama feels like comedically heightened. And then you get your like real serious moment where the character has to come to their denouement. Like Jim Carrey movies in the 90s used to be like this. Like Liar Liar uh is the example I always think of. But with this, like the breakup scene feels very dramatic. Phillips' death obviously is very dramatic, but also Barbara's death scene, too. Like for all the comedy in this film, and for as witty and as snappy as it is, this is a very dramatic film. I think what gets me is the title Sean of the Dead, going back to our uh like the the title of it for a second, as we discussed, you know, it has a lot of weight and a lot of depth to its title, and it probably helped attain its success writing in as a parody of an entire genre that had a film with the rhyming title at the same exact time it was in the box office. But this really is. I wouldn't say that it's a parody film. No, not at all. In the way that one would expect a film called Shawn of the Dead to be one. It's very, very dramatic.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:13

Yeah, I mean, it plays itself 100% straight. You know, like really effective character comedy comes from being an absurd character or being in an absurd situation or a mix of those two, but playing it with deadly seriousness. Like, all of these characters are fully believable characters. They're going through very real, or I mean, real with air quotes because of zombies, but like real experiences to them, but they just are who they are, right? And I remember in theaters, one of the biggest laughs that the movie got was uh the Bloody Mary scene when they push her onto that spike thing and she rises up like at first it's like a uh sort of moment, but then as they watch and Nick Frost just raises the disposable camera and clicks it forward, like yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:10

I audibly laughed.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:12

That that was one of the biggest laughs in theater, and they don't have to say a word, right? And that's like that's brilliant comedic acting and storytelling because like they're not doing anything to be funny, you just believe that is who Nick Frost is, and like or here his character Ed, who Ed is. Yeah. And like, what would you do in that situation? If you were standing there and that happened and you were already holding the camera, like, yeah, you you believe that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:38

Yeah. But yeah, but that and that's why, you know, like I said, with all of the And that's why, like I said, with how dramatic the film is, why I want to hop in and talk about uh Barbara's death scene as well. Because like we talked about with Philip's death scene, that is a real change in Sean's journey because he's not taking Ed's shit anymore. But it's also in a way, it feels like a metaphor for the last hurdle he has as being a child when he has to deal with the fact that his mom is going to die too, because like he's now effectively, you know, he's parentless at that point. And it's like when you're when you're parentless, like that is something that forces you to grow up.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:19

Yeah, I think like another way of thinking about this movie as a whole, just to sort of broaden out for a second, is that Sean is speed running all of the landmarks to adulthood, which would be outgrowing your younger self-friend, like the friends you had when you were younger. Losing a parent, losing a second parent, heartbreak, interpersonal conflict, and homeownership, like by the end of the movie. And I think the like his mother's death scene is like when you are like once I'm lucky that both of my parents are alive. I know, John, you lost your father. But once you lose both of them, it's what forces you to truly just be out in the world. Like you lose so much semblance of a safety net. And that's the position that he's thrust into in this, you know, sort of speed run of life in the setting of the apocalypse.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:14

I was gonna talk about this scene, but I was gonna talk about it from a different perspective than Sean's Iranklenov, even though this scene is, as John you highlighted, is pivotal to his development and kind of that last hurdle, as you said. I allude to earlier that my favorite part of this re-watch was watching Ed and Barbara's relationship and the kind of little movie that they had off to the side and the relationship that they had, because while no character out and out, okay, maybe Pete, maybe a little bit of David, no character out and out hates Ed, but they're all kind of tired of Ed.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:45

The one character that always seems very happy to see Ed is Barbara. And you get the sense, because look, in all of our friends' group growing up, we probably had the one kid that the parents were a little bit more annoyed with like, oh fuck, I gotta deal with this guy. Yeah. Uh He's over my house. He's eating my food. He's just gonna stare at the TV for fucking and I'm sure Ed was that kid in the friend group, because that's just who he is as an adult. But I can guarantee you that Barbara was the one parent that always showed him kindness.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:13

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:14

And that's very much reflected in Nick Frost's performance as well as Barbara's performance. I'm sorry if I'm getting the actor's name, but I digress. So when Barbara's dying, and Sean is having a genuine breakdown, it cuts away to Ed for a split second. And you see how absolutely wrecked he is in that moment. He's not like Sean, because Sean's literally about to lose his mother, but Ed is losing almost a friend.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:40

Or his chosen family.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:42

His chosen family, yes. And that kind of, in my opinion, is what is the catalyst to what tops off Ed's arc and you know, only a couple scenes after the fact and his decision in the end. But I wanted to highlight that real quick. And then obviously all the fallout from Barbara's death with the Mexican standoff, you know, when they're deciding, you know, well, she's about to be a zombie. And while David making valid points is handling it horribly wrong, as a lot of people in zombie movies are want to do. And it leads to the four of them all circling off and kind of gang up on each other, and Liz being the one that kind of got to calm everybody down. But if you look at that performance, it's also the one time in the scene where Ed's a good friend to Sean.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:24

Yeah, he he proves he's a ride or die. Like he'll he'll put a wine bottle opener to someone's neck for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:31

Though he'll be fair because when die's like, this isn't fair, he hands to the broken bottle and then go get the wine opener.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:38

He's got his own, he does have his own moral code. He does. Um yeah, I do know, you know, like behind the scenes, this scene actually did cause them to like cry real tears as they were shooting it. A testament to every actor involved. Because like, you know, the I think every so many zombie movies or horror movies in general sort of have that third act, like, you know, everybody is questioning everything and you know, everyone's freaking out. Like, even though the situation is inherently absurd, like everyone is really giving like such a strong performance in it. We do also get, you know, like the payoff of David and Die's little arc, you know, coming to terms with like also old baggage, you know, like David gives Sean so much shit in the first place because he's jealous and you know is still in love with Liz from like college, you know, and this is like the interpersonal conflict sort of thing about growing up is like just getting over the past and like moving on from those old, you know, grudges.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:42

It's it's a little David sidebar for a second, and I don't want to get as deep, but like I'll get a little bit deep. Some characters are mature, but they wear a mask of immaturity. But some characters are immature, but they wear the mask of maturity. I think Sean is a character who, while he does need a, as Phillips says, a little encouragement, a little pushing along. What Bush comes to shove, he does show that he is still able to rise and meet the challenge. Even though he's very much, you know, he wears the mask of immaturity. David is a person that seems like literally the biggest caricature of like britishness I've ever seen, possibly ever portrayed in film, and seems like I'm the mature guy. I'm here to solve the situation, and and I am the guy that clearly everybody will look to for leadership. And yet the guy's shown to be cowardice in a lot of respects. He hasn't joined any of the real zombie fights until he has to. He's the one when they're trying to get into the Winchester, and you know, Sean's trying to explain, no, there's a and beforehand he just breaks the window, leaving them open.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:45

He's the one that, you know, while again, he is technically right, but he's doing it for the wrong reasons. We gotta shoot Barbara now that you know she's gonna be a zombie, and unlike the other characters, shows very little to no remorse about, even though he's asking Sean to literally kill his own mother.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

Yeah, or like just not giving him the space to grieve.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:04

Exactly. And then the flip side, and I think what ultimately condemns him is after Sean kills Barbara, he has to get that one little dig of like, well, we can all agree you did the right thing, and Sean punches him, and rightfully so, but then he grabs the rifle and he fucking goes to shoot and it's not loaded.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:22

Yeah. And what does this scene sound a whole lot like from a movie that we covered a couple weeks ago?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:29

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:30

Like this is a direct mirror of the um the Ben and Harry dynamic from Night of the Living Dead. Like the baseless authority figure versus the person who, while not ideal, is actually like doing a pretty good job. You know, like let me rephrase that because it that doesn't really carry for both films.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:50

It it doesn't only because there's a romantic entanglement between the two of them. Yeah. Well, it well that's the only real difference.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:57

It's the conflict of baseless authority versus the person perceived as lesser who is actually doing well. If we talk about the racial element of Knight of the Living Dead, like we could, you know, put that Harry maybe doesn't believe in Ben's plan because of a preconceived bias. And David, in the same vein, you know, sees Sean still as this like incompetent fool, even though like he's sort of been saving your ass this whole time. Like you would have just been like locked in your apartment building waiting for them to get you, you know, had you not, you know, done something, you would have done nothing. And David, just like Harry, when Sean is, you know, in a struggle, chooses to do nothing. He just wants to tell people what to do, but he doesn't actually want to do anything. I mean, in this sort of like backing up just a hair, I wanted to talk about the Winchester, the rifle, because part of this movie that I think sets it apart from American zombie films is that nobody knows how to use the gun. You know, they talk about it in the beginning, like, it does work. Big Al said so. And Sean says, Yeah, Big L also says, dogs can't look up. And so they go the whole movie thinking that the gun is deactivated. When Ed gives it to Sean, he uses it as a melee weapon and then accidentally fires it. And we're like, okay, it does, it does work. But dogs can look up, which I think was also one of the other like loudest laughs of the entire film in the theater. But like they have to sort of crowdsource like Dyes worked with a stage prop, David has read about guns in books, uh, Ed's played video games, and oh, he shot him, he shot his sister with an air rifle one time. So I don't know. I just wanted to talk about that because like Night of the Living Dead, like they find a gun immediately and it's present through like it's just sitting in a closet and it's uh used throughout the film. They sort of automatically know how to use it, and it ends with a posse of just like random people grabbing their guns and going out killing. Sean, you know, by contrast, like in the British sensibility where guns are illegal, it's the less obvious choice compared to the cricket bat.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:12

This movie uses a sense of humor that is my probably my favorite, which is adding real world logic to an illogical situation. You know, Anthony, to your point, it's not like they get a gun, all of a sudden everybody's an expert marksman, like in most films. They're, you know, Sean's a terrible shot and has to be kind of guided by everybody else, telling them how to shoot and where to shoot. And just because he plays a lot of video games doesn't make him, you know, all of a sudden he's Clint Eastwood. Also, when they're trying to destroy like to go back a little bit further, when they're trying to kill the first two zombies and they're throwing the vinyls at them. Like they're fucking up. They're like, we don't know. Like the fact that Ed was able to kill the armless zombie in the living room was almost by complete accident because he just like hit him really hard over the head with an ashtray.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:58

So they're almost learning as they're going on, and it's not nothing's clean, nothing's natural to them. They're just figuring it out as they go, and it gives them a sense of relatability, but also elevates the comedy a lot because it's funny because they don't know how to shoot. It's funny because they think like, oh, we'll just use this vinyl wrecker like a fucking throwing star, essentially. Yeah, and maybe we'll get lucky and we'll decapitate a zombie. Shit, that's not working. We'll just okay, fine. We'll just hit them really, really hard with stuff. Yeah. Like they're learning as we're learning, and it helps with the humor too, on top of everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:32

Yeah, they actually hit more zombies when the shells are burning on the bar than when they actually try to shoot them. I think they actually only manage to shoot two zombies in the head with the gun, like intentionally.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:47

No, the no, the and and just the the almost like the cosmic coincidence when, you know, just almost like Sean yells up, give me a break, and that's when the shells start going off and taking out zombies nearly get into the cellar.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:01

Yeah, this scene um also just has some deeper meaning to like, you know, when I say that the movie was personal to the cast and the crew, like them so him playing the video game in the beginning of the movie is Time Splitters, which does have a zombie element to it, but you like the dynamic that Ed and Sean have is like they'll say top left, you know, bottom right, whatever, to you know, say where to shoot. And in the Winchester shootout scene, you know, people are saying like 12 o'clock, 11:30, and Sean is like confused, but then Ed speaks in video game terms and like he starts to understand. And this whole scene, what inspired them to make Sean of the Dead in the first place was they had the TV show spaced before this, and there was an episode where Simon Pegg's character took some bad speed and ended up staying up all night playing Resident Evil, and he starts to hallucinate that he's fighting real zombies. Hell yeah. And that scene from the show, they had so much fun making. They were like, you know, in a car on the way home from set, and they were like, we should just make a whole zombie movie together. And this scene is almost exactly the way that it is in that show, just recycled and in a new setting. But it's, you know, a little bit more fun fact to add to the add to the pile here.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:24

I'm bummed because like that I I was fully intending in and me running out of time. I'm like, finally, have a reason to finally watch Spaced.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:32

Oh, I highly, highly recommend Spaced. It's uh it's a great show.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:37

Because it it feels like one of those, like, I'm gonna watch it going like, why have I not just watched this like every day for my entire life, basically? It seems like that kind of a show.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:46

So Jessica Hines, the woman who plays Yvonne, their first conversation where there's the ambulance and the zombie on a stretcher in the in the back, they're talking about how she bought a house and Sean responds, bought that's because the premise of spaced was that they were roommates in a flat who had to pretend to be a couple because of a clause in their lease. So, like, that's a little homage to their past work as well, that she plays the character who Sean is impressed when she says that she bought a house instead of rented.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:20

Oh, all real adult.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:22

Again, like I I wish I got to watch it. I probably will. I'll I'll find it somewhere. I'm actually because I want to give her a quick shout out and trying to find out who like the actress's name who played Barbara, because I felt bad because I forgot her name. Penelope Walton. That that's what it is. I because I know her because she's in the Doctor Who revival from 2005. She is a character that shows up a couple times. But yeah, no, uh, Penelope Walton. And also I found Matt Lucas played um where the the scene where they kind of meet, speaking of Yvonne, like all the doppelgangers.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:52

The guy who plays the guy at the very end is Matt Lucas, who's a character actor I like a lot. Yeah, Martin Freeman is in that line.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:59

Yeah. He's uh Yvonne's boyfriend. Dude, I literally turned into the DiCaprio meme when I saw him on TV.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:07

Like pointing at the screen, like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:10

I thought it was just like, oh, yeah. I mean, it's funny like watching these movies and seeing that, because like now we also know what Simon Pegg became. Like he was in the Mission Impossible franchise. Nick Frost is about to be Hagrid. Martin Freeman became the Black Panther.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:26

At least in China.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:30

In the Chinese release, he's the star. It's he's the biggest on the poster.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:36

The Chinese poster is just the Martin Freeman character poster.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:40

In in Hot Fuzz, you have like a way pre-Oscar Olivia Coleman. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:46

But there's some great people in randomly in a cameo in Sean of the Dead is cold play. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:53

Like putting on a fundraiser for zombade. All right. We got any more bops to talk about before we go into closing images?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:00

Yeah, let's talk about the scene where Ed says what's up, my N-words.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:03

Yeah, I forgot that was in there. Yeah, same.

unknown 1:19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:07

Same. I will say, flawless movie, totally perfect. One line. One line. One note made me one note.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:15

It was 2004 was a little movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:17

Yeah, earlier I was gonna say it's a perfect film, no notes. I have one note. One little note.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:24

Just one, one little note that made all of us go, What did he say?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:30

One note, just six little letters, just yeet right out of there. Yeah, well right, let's go to the closing images. The pub is burning. The group's numbers have dwindled. Only Sean, Liz, and Ed remain. And Ed has seen better days. Sean breaks down, heartbroken at the loss of his mom, his stepdad, David, and die. They only have two shells left in the rifle. Liz and Sean contemplate how to use them. As all hope seems lost, perhaps the best use would be for Sean to shoot Liz and himself. Ed volunteers to be Ian instead of wasting a shell. Sean admits that he doesn't think he has the capacity to shoot his flatmate, his mom, and his girlfriend all in the same day. Liz asks him, what makes him think she decided to take him back? Sean replies, You don't really want to die single, do you? Ed chimes in, he's changed his mind. Actually, he would like to be shot. Sean lights what he is sure will be his last cigarette, but the glow from the lighter reveals the controls for a hydraulic lift that goes to the street above. Sean goes to help Ed, but Ed tells Sean to go without him. They share an emotional goodbye, and Sean leaves Ed the rifle. Sean and Liz activate the lift, rising back to street level. The road is swarmed with zombies. Sean and Liz are surrounded. And then white lights. A military truck ploughs through a crowd of zombies. Men in camouflage and polished boots exit the vehicle wielding automatic firearms. They lay waste to the horde, cutting through the undead with a hail of bullets. Amidst the chaos, Sean hears his name. It's his friend Yvonne, who we met earlier. She's shown up with the cavalry. Cut to a TV program, an exploitative documentary about a young boy who fought off the corpses of his entire family. Zombies from hell. The channel flips. A news program referring to the events of Z-Day, which we all know was caused because of the use of the channel flips again. A newscaster thinks back on Z-Day. It's not something I ever expected as a newscaster, I'd have to say on air. Removing the head or destroying the brain. Incredible. It flips again. Coldplay is hosting a fundraiser called Zombade. Flip, a think piece on how zombies actually make really great employees of the service industry. Flip, a game show where the undead compete in an obstacle course for meat. Flip. Patricia interviews a woman who is still married to her zombie husband. Feet shamble into frame. Sean's feet, mirroring the shot from the intro. Except something's different now. The floor is clean. Sean wears socks in the house. He still yawns like a zombie though. Some things never change. Sean goes to sit on the couch next to Liz, and they make a plan for the day. A cup of tea, the paper, a roast, the pub, some tell. Liz goes to put the kettle on, and Sean says he's going to pop into the garden for a bit. Go on then, Liz replies. Sean opens the door to the shed and picks up a video game controller. He sits down next to Ed, now a zombie. Together they play their video game joyfully as Queen's You're My Best Friend plays and the credits roll. What do we think? How's that for an outro?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:47

It's per love it. It's perfect because look, um, somebody who is a believer in the power of the happy ending, you want to send the audience out feeling good. And the movie not only does it give alright, Sean Liz living, that would have been enough. Now Sean Liz living together in Sean's old flat that now looks habitable, you know, it looks like a home as opposed to before it was just a house. But as the added bonus, Ed look, Ed was never gonna have much of a future. I think Ed knew that, and Ed kind of knew what he was doing to Sean in their relationship, which is why he was willing to sacrifice himself at the end of the film. But in a weird like way, Edgar gave Sean the ability to like have his cake in the two, while yeah, sure, Ed is dead and now a zombie, but that was kind of his natural state. The happiest Ed was ever, you know, in his life was being on the couch playing video games. So now he gets to have that for now until eternity. And while Sean is very happy and this idyllic version and life he's built with Liz, while he's finally grown into himself as a man, he's still not just now I'm serious, everyman. It's a reminder that we do need those childish indulgences from time to time to keep us sane, if anything. You know, I'm somebody who, again, in his mid-30s, has every scrap of every comic that Chris Claremont wrote for the X-Men, at least from 75 to 91, because I need that from time to time. Even though there'd be people look at me like, why do you do that? Because I enjoy it and I need it, and God knows we all need it. So yeah, it lands the plane nicely. Because it gives everybody in a way what they wanted.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:33

Yeah, I think like it it does show like you don't have to live the most exciting life. You can live a simple life, just live your life and live it thoroughly, right? Like they're still going to the pub. And Liz suggested, you know, that's compromised there. Like they're still gonna end the night drinking pints at the Winchester. Or you know, maybe at this point, we don't know. Maybe Sean has a nice glass of red wine at the pub. But they're still going to the pub, but at least they're like putting in time together. He still makes time to hang out with his friend Ed. Liz is okay with it because she gets in the rest of the day. So a few minutes playing time splitters in the shed is fine. And you're right. Like, again, masterful foreshadowing.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:17

What does roommate Pete say to Ed? You want to live like an animal, go live in the fucking shed. Wow. Like in the beginning of the movie. And then it turns out, yeah, living like an animal in the shed is exactly what how Ed would be happiest. He's just a zombie now.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:34

I know. I think the um what do you think about the ending with like the the military sort of swarming in at the last minute?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:41

It's like one of the few mm zombie movies where the military doesn't get eviscerated in the first 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:48

It's like one of the few times where it's actually the most realistic outcome.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:52

It it's realistic, but it's also there's a couple things at the end of the film that can be looked at as plot contrivances. You know, obviously the the shell is going off on the bar, the military showing up right when you think, oh my god, you know, Sean and Liz are surrounded. How are they gonna fight their way out of this? But it's welcome because and I alluded to this in one battle, there are certain films that it can end great and everybody gets what they want, or it's the kind of bittersweet ending.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:20

And you kind of see, you know, Sean and Liz living like a Mad Max style life, you know, after the fact, which is a life, but it's a compromised life, and it's something that is not ideal. They're not gonna be able to grow as a as a couple living in those kinds of environments. So is it a contrivance? Yes, but it's a very welcome one because now you get to be like, all right, not only are they gonna live, but they're gonna they're gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:45

Yeah, and the rest of the world goes back to normal in its own sort of way. Like in in its mindless dumb like what do they do with the zombies? They fucking make reality TV out of them. Yeah. Yeah, I like I think that the you know, the military rolling in like that, you know, like I sort of alluded to earlier, like, it mimics the Night of the Living Dead ending, where the people in Night of the Living Dead were sort of a ragtag group of people assembled by like a local sheriff, but guns are commonplace in the US, so that can happen. In this one, like that uh highly organized group is more realistic to what happened in England because n you know, guns aren't common. So like the fact that the Winchester rifle worked at all was sort of a minor miracle. But like when they roll in, instead of mowing down Liz and Sean in the process, like how Ben was just sort of haphazardly wiped out, they don't. They're more precise, you know, with their response. And I I think that's just you know part of that contrast of like the American response versus the the English response.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:56

Yeah, no, no, no notes.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:57

You know, it it it's solid. So let's talk about the Legacy here. What impact do you think Sean of the Dead had on the genre, on film as a whole?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:07

I've thought about this for a for a while because creator of the show, Andrew Schwarz is going to know exactly what I'm talking about. I oftentimes like referring to the Millennial Canon, which are films that, you know, our generation kind of get to claim that were made in the 21st century. Because a lot of older folks and even some of our contemporaries tend to look backwards a lot where almost like film history ended with the turn of the century. You know, 1999 is a film is a year that's venerated. You know, the 1970s, nobody will shut up about the 1970s. And yet nobody seems to talk about the 2000s and the 2010s and now the 2020s as, you know, a decade of or decades of culture predominantly, because I guess we're all very preoccupied with very real-world things that we tend to kind of leave art by the wayside a little bit. And that's a mistake because, you know, we're still film is a thing, it's a viable medium. Same with television, same with music, same with all of it. Yet none of it really gets discussed. And the reason I bring this up is upon this last rewatch, Shawn of the Dead is a film that, while I'm not gonna sit here and say it changed everything, mind-blown, pshh. But what Shawn of the Dead did was it started to define horror and more specifically the rebirth of horror comedy as we know it. There was a lot of imitators after Shawn of the Dead.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:35

There are a lot of Edgar Wright imitators, you know, after he one could argue he's still kind of in his peak years. I still think he's got a few good films in him yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:45

One's in the room right now. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:49

But but I digress. This film doesn't get spoken about in terms of its importance to what it did for film culture after the fact. I don't think that Weapons is a film without Shawn of the Dead. Sure. You know, I don't think that a lot of the appreciation and reevaluation of the films of Sam Raimi happen without Shawn of the Dead. I also don't think that horror has this renaissance where there's only two types of films that are being made right now successfully. Comic book films, which are admittedly on their way out, even though they buoyed the film industry for almost 20 years, and the horror film, which has finally gotten to the point where they're critically acclaimed in winning Oscars, and nobody's even batting an eye at that anymore. Right. Yeah. I think that ultimately, and and I've I've said this, watching Edgar Wright films makes me feel old because I remember a day where, again, Edgar Wright was a young hot director coming up, and Simon Pegg was a young actor coming up, and now he's been in the mission possible films and the Star Trek films. Nick Frost is a young hot actor, now he's gonna play Hagrid for crying out loud, which I have a lot of feelings on.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:04

Good, I can assure you, but still feelings of about him specifically or about the Harry Potter franchise.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:11

The fact that all of a sudden the young actors are now playing the old characters.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:14

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:15

Now they're the the wisened figures. I felt that way when Aubrey Plaza played a mom in the Child's Play remake. And I went, she's now a mom. I guess that makes sense, but I remember her being like my babysitter's age, you know, when I was a certain like again, my older sister as opposed to my mom per se, but that makes sense because now I'm essentially old enough to be a father, even though I don't think of myself as such. So the legacy of Shawn of the Dead ultimately, as well as the legacy of Edgar Wright, is the guy who, while I don't think for as much as film nerds like us venerate the man, never got his due in the sense of he made genre films fun, accessible, and critically viable.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:02

At a time where they weren't, you know. Sean of the Dead, like again, not to belabor the point I just made, Sean the Dead reached critical acclaim at a time where, again, horror films were not critically acclaimed remotely. And now it's like, oh yeah, Sean of the Dead, that 25-year-old classic. 22.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:21

That's a hefty roundup. 22. Fair.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:24

That's a 22 round up.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:27

Don't do this to us.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:30

Yeah, especially after my.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:31

I just turned 33. Don't do that to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:34

Yeah, especially now after I'm like You're pushing 40, John. Motherfucker, I'm turning 35. I'm pushing 40 at this point. And and and I and again, to the point where to kind of bring this all full circle, Sean is at a point in his life in this film where his antics are no longer cute. And I think he's starting to realize that. And I've often used this analogy when you vandalize somebody's car and the cops are taking you to prison and not to your parents' house to get admonished. You know it's like, okay, it's time to grow up a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:08

Yeah, for sure. Whose cars are you out vandalizing?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:11

No, I'm just making an analogy of like if I were to vandalize somebody's car, it's no longer, oh, you scampets, sir, you're coming with us.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:18

Yeah. I mean, Blink 182 had a song about it, but they set the line at 23. So 29 is just like, God damn, dude. People hate you when you're 29.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:29

Yeah, how do you think I feel when I'm 35? It's like, dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:33

Yeah. Even that's fucking reference, Blink 182's.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:38

Um, what the fuck is that song called? What's my age? What's my age again? What is my age again? God damn. I don't know. I let my lower back dictate that one. Yeah, I I agree. Like, things like weapons, maybe, you know, anything of Jordan Peele's catalog, like the sort of new renaissance of like horror movies directed by comedic actors or people from like sketch teams or whatever. Like you could probably draw, you know, a fairly straight line between Shawn of the Dead and that Zombieland for sure wouldn't exist. Maybe Warm Bobbies The Walking Dead TV show could probably thank Shawn of the Dead. You know, that like you could tell a very human story with zombie apocalypse just sort of being the backdrop and do it for how many seasons, 14 seasons they did, something like that, in addition to all the frigging spin-offs of The Walking Dead, like you could probably make a case. You know, a new zombie craze that lasted through the early 2000s, uh, although there's sort of like another factor at play there, and that's the the Bush years, right? Like there is a trend where zombie movies, just in general, tend to become more popular during Republican presidencies and during Democrat presidencies, vampire movies are more popular. You know, like that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causality, but it is an interesting thing, and people sort of speculate like people's politics, like maybe liberals see conservatives as a mindless sword of zombies, and you know, conservatives see Democrats as a bunch of blood-sucking sexual deviants, you know? Stupid sexy Dracula.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:36

John, you got anything? I think the one thing I found interesting is like, you know, the discussion about Edgar Wright being kind of like at that time the hot new director and discussing the legacy of it, uh the his legacy and the legacy of this film in particular. I think the thing that's really interesting is that you know, you mentioned how we don't really talk about we don't really talk about like films of the 2000s in the same way that we talk about, you know, films of the nineties and before and and film of like the 2000s and beyond just aren't really part of the conversation in the same way. But the one thing I will say is interesting in that regard is that the amount of people I have seen attempt or draw from Edgar Wright out of any other filmmaker is certainly noticeable. And I I mean I I could almost argue with that being the case that like Edgar Wright might actually be the most important filmmaker in terms of the craft that we've had since like the 2000s have started. Because I think the only other filmmaker I see people imitate anywhere near as much is like maybe Tarantino. And Tarantino tends to be emulated more from a writing standpoint. But so much of Edgar Wright's style I have seen mocked. Or not mocked, but like Imitated. I've seen it imitated. I think that really speaks to just how unique and distinct his filmmaking is. I would throw Wes Anderson on that pile. Yeah, Wes Anderson too.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:09

Yeah, but Wes predates Edgar. Like he's still a 90s director. He's still like a Sundance guy.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:15

Yeah, he had a few films in there. I yeah, I I agree with you. I think like at the very least, he's got such a distinct style. Like when we throw those two, those three directors into a list like that, Tarantino, Wright, and Anderson, like those are three of the most distinct stylistic directors out there right now. Um, so like when they are imitated, it's more obvious than say trying to imitate Christopher Nolan, where you know that imitation is going to be more in the storytelling perspective, probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:50

Yeah, but in terms of just like sheer visual direction, um, yeah, beyond those three, the only other filmmaker I could think of, and this has been more of a recent thing, um, which I think would still count, but he was also more of a 90s director, uh, is the Hong Kong director Wonkar Wai. Um the kids love Wonkar Wai. I love Wonkar Wai. We we know John.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:16

It's it's funny because there's another guy I would bring up, and this is like aging me too. But like I remember in full sale, the other guy that everybody wanted to imitate was Guy Ritchie, the other kind of big British filmmaker of the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:28

Yeah, I could see that. I think who's like a more contemporary director that like somebody just out now who is creating I would say the Safties for sure. Love them or hate them. Yeah, Safties, definitely. Um, maybe Ali Abasi. Ali Abasi, I could see. Like, I don't know if you watched The Apprentice, but like that is, even though it's a tough watch, because yeah fucking hate the guy, or at least I do, you know, the subject of the movie, like the style is undeniable. Um, he had another movie that uh my fiance Seppi's mom actually edited, Holy Spider, that uh uh won some one at con. That like you can see his incredibly distinct, you know, directorial style, and he's only got a couple, yeah, a couple features out there. Maybe Taika? Taika Watiti?

SPEAKER_04 1:39:21

Yeah, to to an extent.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:23

A little less so.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:24

I I feel like Taika Park Chan Woke, yeah, and then Park Chan Woke's been getting more esoteric lately, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:30

He's been turning into like an esoteric Hitchcock with his last few films.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:34

But no, I think Taiko, I I feel bad because I feel like Taika Waititi was so hot after Ragnarok and after Jojo Rabbit. And then just I don't know if for whatever reason, maybe it's he went back to the Marvel well one time too many, just I feel like he kind of lost a lot of momentum.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:48

Zack Snyder, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:52

But Zach Zack's been active for I say his first name, like I know. Uh Zack Snyder's been active for a long time. I mean, we already mentioned, you know, the Dawn of the Dead remake. Right. You know, in from 2004.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:04

I mean, look, my favorite guy working right now is James Gunn. I'll say it outright. James Gunn?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:11

Maybe he could trace uh something back. Like Edgar Wright, early master of the needle drop. Like we were talking about Baby Driver, like that I I actually sort of remember the point in time, I think, where he was writing Baby Driver, because I followed him on I followed Edgar Wright on Twitter, and like there was this one year where every day he was just posting a new song like Today's Jam, and then Baby Driver came out, you know, and I think that that was him like sort of writing a movie around the needle drop, and that's something that James Gunn heavily relies upon in his filmmaking.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:50

But yeah, but I I think even amongst all of those other filmmakers, like amongst all of them that we've mentioned, going back to the legacy of like films coming out of the early 2000s, I still go back to like from everything I see, Edgar Wright and his style is one that I see all the time. And then Wes Anderson is definitely a second, at least in terms of the American film scene. And I think that's really telling. Just about like the the way that these guys are gonna be remembered for, especially Edgar Wright.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:22

Yeah, I mean, this film especially, like, definitely gives him a place in the pantheon of, you know, immortal filmmakers, unless he does something that makes us not want to watch his movies anymore. Let's see. We'll hold out we'll hold out on that one. But you know, like Sean of the Dead, while it, you know, some people might see it as a parody, we see it as a legitimate entry into the genre. And at this point, it is in like on IMDB and Run Tomatoes, it's in the top ten zombie films ever made. Yeah. You know, like it's it is legitimately one of the best films in the genre.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:01

It is. I I love it. I I love like the last couple of films I didn't get to pick. We got to talk Silence of the Lambs and Show on the Dead. So thanks guys for making my job really easy.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:10

Yeah. I mean, we do have a couple more things for the legacy we didn't touch upon, which would be Hot Fuzz and World's End.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:17

But we will talk about those films, I feel like, on separate episodes.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:20

Yeah, like I definitely want to do a an episode on Hot Fuzz. I like I think Hot Fuzz is pretty up there in quality with Shawn of the Dead. I, you know, I I remember World's End, I didn't care for as much.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:34

World's End saved my life, so we're gonna get to that.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:37

Yeah, I feel like I need to give it a rewatch and maybe I want to watch them like back to back to back.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:43

Like I I literally, dude, I I kid you not, World Zen made me rethink a lot of my life after watching it.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:50

Yeah, of course, for you know, listener, if you don't know, these three films are considered what's called the uh three flavors Cornetto trilogy, or some people also say the blood and ice cream trilogy, but mostly the yeah, the three flavors Cornetto, with that being a running gag through all three films and like these three explorations of very specific genres that follow the same sort of template, like a very human story told in an absurd situation. And things to look forward to when we're when we're out of Zombiester and into a Brave New World. We probably won't cover those this season, maybe next season. Who's to say? Well, that about wraps up our show. Thank you to my co-host Jon at Adam. Thank you to Andrew Schwartz, creator of the show, and for the use of our theme music. Thank you to Sepia Abdulvahab for editing this episode. And of course, thank you to our audience for listening. We'll catch you next time on part three of Zombeaster 2K26. Until then, pop in a good movie, have a nice cup of tea, and wait for all this to blow up.