August 17, 2004 05:18 am | Shaun of the Dead

From Vu

NICK FROST, SIMON PEGG, and EDGAR WRIGHT (15 Aug 2004)

I went to see the Minneapolis/US premiere of "Shaun of the Dead" film last Sunday. The film will be released in general selected theaters (500 screens) on September 24.

The film is a romantic comedy (with zombies). There was rarely a moment where the zombies were treated as a joke, they were real, and they could kill, yet the heart of the story is about Shaun's relationship with his girlfriend, his best friend, and his parents. There were a lot of reference/homages to earlier zombie films such as "We're coming to get you, Barbara" (from Night of the Living Dead), to the stomach-ripping scene (from Day of the Dead), to the virus-carrying monkey (from 28 Days Later).

Morrissey does appear in this film, by the way. A scene with a clueless Shaun was flipping through the television, all the news about a breakout and, for three seconds, you see The Smiths singing, "Panic on the streets of London". Very funny, there was a hoorah reaction from the audience too! The clip they used was from the Derek Jarman video, appearing on THE SMITHS: THE COMPLETE PICTURE.

After the screening, there was a special Question & Answer session with director Edgar Wright, co-writer/star Simon Pegg, and co-star Nick Frost.

Here are some interesting items from the session:

The US DVD release will have more special features than the UK DVD, because there's a lot of things that had happened since the UK release (especially since they realized they outgross the original Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later in the UK).

A zombie extra actually had one of his eye pop out. Medical reasonings, not because of an accident on set.

The film was made for a mere £4 million.

Sorry for the crappy photograph, I took it secretly with my PDA. Edgar did take a photograph of the audience, which I'm pretty sure I'm in it, but I don't think the photograph is up yet. Check out the official website: www.shaunofthedeadmovie.com (I'm 'sleeperzombie' in case you want to give me some pints), or IMDB: Shaun of the Dead. You can read a review of the UK DVD at DVD Times.co.uk.