Review: Shed of the Dead

Director: Drew Cullingham

Screenplay: Drew Cullingham

Year: 2019

Synopsis: Trevor is unemployed and spends his days avoiding his insufferable wife hidden in his allotment shed painting figurines for the games he enjoys with his friend Graham. When a group of allotment tenants signs a petition to have Trevor removed because of the condition of his plot, this leads to an argument that leaves Trevor with a corpse to hide. Unfortunately, this accident coincides with the zombie apocalypse and this is just the beginning of his problems.

“Shed of the Dead” is a British horror and comedy movie where two game-loving friends find themselves at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. If this sounds familiar, you are on the right track, as “Shed of the Dead” is an attempt at being “Shaun of the Dead” 2.0. Sure, voluntarily assuming the weight that represents trying to imitate a movie that was very successful and loved by horror movie fans is not necessarily a good idea.

Saying that this movie is a copy of “Shaun of the Dead”, even when it has many clear similarities, is not fair. “Shed of the Dead” tries to bring a different style to zombie comedies introducing the fantasy using an RPG game style but it does not work as well as intended. From the start it looks interesting and novel but, besides leading to some comedy, it has no importance on the plot. Although initially, it seems like it has the intention to mix the fantasy world with the zombie apocalypse, this never materializes.

This movie has the contribution of several horror legends as Kane Hodder (“Jason X”), Bill Moseley (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”), and Michael Berryman (“The Hills Have Eyes”). Different from other horror movies that put these faces in their movies to use genre fans nostalgia to their favor, “Shed of the Dead” uses them well, giving them characters that are important in the plot but without taking out the attention from its main cast, composed of Spencer Brown, Lauren Socha (“Misfits”), Ewen MacIntosh (“Fanged Up”), and Emily Booth (“Doghouse”).

I think that my main problem with this movie is that I am not a fan of juvenile comedy. Maybe I can deal with a few jokes without a problem, but a whole movie full of masturbation and sex jokes is just too much for me. With this, I don’t mean it’s not funny, because it is, but from my perspective, the funniest moments are those that have little or no sex reference (see the funny first confrontation in the shed as an example).

To make the tedious and obligatory comparison, “Shed of the Dead” is way below “Shaun of the Dead”. It assumed an unnecessary weight that can play against it as many people will watch it expecting something similar to “Shaun of the Dead” just to be left disappointed. Even when in general is entertaining, it never managed to make me interested in its characters or its story. I’m sure that those who enjoy juvenile humor will have a great time with this movie.