Shaun (Simon Pegg) has hit a brick wall in his life. He has a boring job, a lazy flatmate named Ed (Nick Frost) and, worst of all, his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) has just dumped him. She’s completely fed up with his unromantic attitude, lack of ambition and the endless nights they spend together in the local pub.

But that’s the least of Shaun’s problems. The local TV news is, after all, crammed with countless stories of unexplained events and accidents – the dead have risen from their graves, and London is under attack!

Shaun and Ed grab the nearest weapons on hand – a cricket bat and a shovel – and set off to rescue Liz and Shaun’s mum (Penelope Wilton) and step dad (Bill Nighy). All they have to do is first get through the hordes of flesh-eating zombies.

A big hit in the UK, Shaun of the Dead is a good example of a new film genre – the "rom zom com" (short for romantic zombie comedy). While the movie starts at a cracking pace and the British humor comes on thick and fast, it soon starts to lose its original tone. Viewer may wonder, is this a horror film, a drama, a spoof or a comedy?

These genres don’t sit well together, and there are moments where the action in Shaun grinds to a halt, followed by either long and inappropriate sequences of dialogue or a heavy emotional moment leading to a pratfall. There are also extraneous characters Dianne (Lucy Davis) and David (Dylan Moran), Liz’s friends, who end up part of the team taking on the zombies – but the audience doesn’t really need them.

Overall, Shaun of the Dead hits a few targets. There is real wit here, but it’s uneven and ultimately forgettable at best. That said, the zombies look great and do have a sense of fashionably creepy style.

Grade: B-