Shaun of the Dead

There is something intrinsically ridiculous about zombie movies. No matter how scary they want to be, the spectacle of famished corpses lurching and groaning with their insatiable hunger for flesh and blood is worth at least a titter. Shaun of the Dead skillfully plays off that ridiculousness by implying that Britain may already be populated with the living dead, metaphorically speaking. By treating the genre as a joke, this satire, whose title plays off George A. Romero's 1979 golden oldie, Dawn of the Dead, yields ironic dramatic dividends. (Stephen Holden)