Shaun Of The Dead

Slyly humorous poster for 'Shaun of the Dead'
If anybody knows how to make a funny-yet-creepy horror film, it's Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, two of the creative brains behind Shaun of the Dead, a surprisingly human little zombie movie that is by turns frightening and laugh-out-loud funny, which is a neat trick if you can pull it off. Co-writer Simon Pegg stars as a disaffected appliance salesman whose pub-crawling slacker pals are of little help sorting out his personal problems. When a zombie outbreak hits London, Shaun and his motley crew are forced to make a stand at their beloved neighborhood pub, The Winchester (named after the rifle over the bar, which thankfully turns out to be functional.) The film's droll humor and likeably fallible protagonists struck a resonant chord with audiences and made Shaun of the Dead a critical and commercial success. Pegg and Wright subsequently appeared in small cameos as zombies in George A. Romero's 2005 horror film, Land of the Dead. ('Shaun of the Dead' may be rented from Netflix or purchased on DVD from Amazon.com.)