Zombie comedies have become almost as numerous as straight up zombie films lately. Shaun Of The Dead has a lot to answer for in that regard. The latest, Shed Of The Dead, like Shaun hails from the UK and shares a fair amount of its DNA. Thankfully it also adds a few twists of its own as well as plenty of familiar faces.
Trevor (Spencer Brown), is having a bad time of it. He’s out of work and married to an overbearing bitch Bobbi (Lauren Socha, Fanged Up). He hides in the shed on his allotment painting miniatures for fantasy war games with his friend Graham (Ewen MacIntosh, Fanged Up). Even this is threatened by Mr. Parsons (Kane Hodder, To Hell And Back: The Kane Hodder Story, The Good Things Devils Do) who’s started a petition to have Trevor evicted due to the state of his lot.
An accident leaves Parsons dead, but, of course, it happens on the day the dead decide to rise from their graves. Can Trevor and Graham save themselves? Should they try to save Bobbi, or more importantly, her friend Harriet (Emily Booth, Cradle Of Fear, Evil Aliens)?
I mentioned familiar faces, and apart from Hodder and Booth, Bill Moseley, (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Crepitus, The Church), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes, Hell’s Kitty) and Brian Blessed (Flash Gordon) all make an appearance. Even Warren Speed, (Zombie Women Of Satan, Coulrophobia) dusts off his Pervo the Clown costume for a cameo.
Like most horror comedies, Shed Of The Dead isn’t laugh out loud funny. Writer/director Drew Cullingham (A Vampire’s Tale) did manage to keep me grinning and chuckling though. The animated scenes under the beginning, and especially end credits are well done. And the Dungeons And Dragons style fantasy sequences are something I haven’t seen in a film like this before. Bill Mosley has probably the film’s best line, I won’t spoil it, but it does involve his eating habits.
What I wasn’t expecting was how much of the film is actually somewhat serious. There’s even a couple of fairly poignant moments mixed in with the jokes and carnage.
Shed Of The Dead isn’t the next Shaun Of The Dead, it’s not even the next Me And My Mates vs. The Zombie Apocalypse. But it is a painless enough way to kill some time when it hits VOD in the UK May 20th. Keep an eye on its Facebook page for release dates elsewhere.