Shaun of the Dead (2004)

QFS No. 156 - The invitation for October 30, 2024
Shaun of the Dead is directed by Edgar Wright, wacky genius behind one of my favorite Quarantine Film Society selections Hot Fuzz (2009, QFS No. 29), selected in our group’s first year.

And since my involvement with zombies and zombie fare as a filmmaker has been long documented, Shaun the Dead seemed like an appropriate pick to discuss on the eve of Halloween. If this movie is even remotely as funny as Hot Fuzz, it’s going to be a very satisfying viewing experience.  

So for now let’s ignore our current apocalypse and watch Shaun of the Dead (one of the great plays on “of the dead” you can find) and discuss.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) Directed by Edgar Wright

Reactions and Analyses:
For a comedy about zombies and a zombie apocalypse, Shaun of the Dead (2004) actually has something very pointed to say about humanity – especially at the beginning and the end of the film.

That commentary begins in the opening credits which roll after the opening teaser sequence where we meet Shaun (Simon Pegg) and all the main characters. During the opening credits, director Edgar Wright shows humans sleep-walking through life, zombie like. They sway in unison with their music devices, drugged out, waiting for the bus with vacant expressions and checking their watches simultaneously. Or they go through the motions as cashiers or in the supermarket parking lot. Even Shaun, when he wakes up, lurches like the undead.

Zombies or people? Or can we even tell the difference?

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), Edgar Wright asks the question if we’d even notice a zombie apocalypse at all.

The filmmaker appears to be saying – we’re already acting like zombies. So if an actual zombie apocalypse happens, would we even notice?

The answer, for a while, is no. At least not for Shaun and Ed (Nick Frost) – roommates and disconnected from the world and occupied by their own concerns. (Or lack of them, in Ed’s case.) Meanwhile, a strange disease or occurrence is turning people into the undead. The fact is, we are so distracted and going through the motions of life that we can easily avoid knowing that an apocalypse is at our doorstep.

Shaun, moving zombie-like through the world already.

Wright cleverly continues to show us that we’re already among people who are the walking dead already. A homeless beggar asks Shaun for cash and later, when that beggar has been turned into a zombie, Shaun barely notices the difference. In another scene, Shaun looks out at the park and sees what appears to be a homeless person with mental health issues who goes after pigeons. Is he about to eat one? Before we can find out, a bus comes between Shaun and the man, and both the pigeons and the – homeless person? zombie? – are gone.

Shaun even stares, zombie-like, at the television, a television set that is desperately trying to tell him that the world is crumbling and people need to take cover because humans are mutating into some sort of animal-like undead creature. It’s an incredibly brilliant device – Shaun is flipping through the channels and each one is filling out a statement, telling us (who already know this) and Shaun (who still isn’t hearing it) that the world is ending. It’s terrifically funny and a perfectly clever coordination of exposition, character development, and plot setup.

Even when one of the undead women nearly kills Shaun, they think she’s drunk and coming on to him. It isn’t until they see her impaled and survive with a hole in her torso do they finally understand that something is very very very wrong. It’s fantastic.

Shaun still doesn’t quite get that there are zombies now in the world, even when one is literally on top of him.

He finally finally gets it.

As several us in the discussion pointed out, Wright and his collaborator Pegg are clearly fans of genres. We screened and discussed Hot Fuzz (2009, QFS No. 29) four years ago, a film that’s a perfect homage and satire of action films that could only be done by someone deeply immersed in the genre. Same goes for Shaun of the Dead – it’s clear that Wright and Pegg are zombie movie nerds. The film contains a multitude of reference and possibly my favorite one is Shaun’s mother, named “Barbara” (Penelope Wilton) which gives the perfect set up to reference a line from Night of the Living Dead (1968, QFS No. 44) – “we’re coming to get you, Barbara!” Not to mention that they can’t say the “zed word,” a reference to the fact that zombie movies and shows go to painstaking lengths to call the undead anything but “zombies.” Even the Hindi-language broadcast in the Indian-run corner convenience store is broadcasting about the zombie apocalypse - but in Hindi so Shaun doesn’t get the news.

This tactic of smearing zombie guts on your body to move among the zombies will be used later in The Walking Dead series. 

The flowers for Shaun’s mother Barbara are an example of a simple gag set up and paid off much later.

Wright’s comedic setup, timing and use of dialogue are unmatched in contemporary filmmaking, I feel. His comedy isn’t based on improv or relies on clever characters the way a Judd Apatow film might, but uses visuals and filmmaking in the way that Charlie Chaplain may have done to enhance comedic scenarios. It’s true directing to enhance a story. And for Shaun of the Dead, it’s his clever use of satire to make a sideways dig at humanity that elevates this film from something like Zombieland (2009) that’s a funny action zombie-genre film but nothing much beyond that. Shaun of the Dead is an insightful film about our current civilization – still “current” even though it was made 20 years ago. I’d argue it's even more relevant now, frankly. He’s saying – we’re already in a semi-catatonic state of detachment. How much different are we than the zombies of movie lore?

Watching useful zombies on television in the aftermath.

And what cements his apparent commentary is the film’s denouement, the final moments after the climactic finale. Humanity has now learned to live with the undead around them. Shaun and Liz (Kate Ashfield) watch TV and see that there are the mundane type of shows we have now – talk shows, game shows, news documentaries – but with one key difference. They all have folded zombie-life into their world. Zombies have been utilized to do daily labor tasks humans once did. Others are part of a game show where they’re raced or used for sport. There’s a sensationalized talk show where a woman talks about the love of her life is a zombie. It’s so perfect – humanity hasn’t so much as learned from their mistakes and made life more vibrant, they’ve just adapted to the reality of having zombies living among them.

The clincher for this is the final scene – Ed, now a zombie, is chained in a little shed in Shaun and Liz’s yard, where he’s hooked up to a video game system. Just as we saw him at the beginning of the film. And Shaun plays with him. Ed is living the same life as before. Just now, as a zombie. Which is basically what he was all along.

Shaun and Ed, living on the couch in front of a video game console.

As Ed was in the beginning - on the couch, playing video games with his friend  Shaun.

Is this a scathing criticism of people, society, of men in particular? After all, Shaun’s journey throughout the film is evolving from an overgrown child into a man who can take charge and actually prove his love to Liz. Regardless, the commentary or criticism would be nothing without humor, the performances, and the execution from the deft hand of an elite-level filmmaker.  

Carnival of Souls (1962)

QFS No. 155 - The invitation for October 23, 2024
We go from low-budget drama for our previous selection to low-budget horror this week. This is going to be an incredibly short invitation, compared to the usual, because I deliberately know nothing about Carnival of Souls. I know that it’s a film that has been influential to filmmakers over the years, enough to be in the Criterion Collection, and that it from the 1960s. And maybe it has a carnival of sorts? Or perhaps its metaphoric!

Also, importantly – the film is originally in black and white. In my briefest of research, Amazon Prime is offering a color version. My suggestion is to eschew this colorized film and go for the original because we’re purists here at the Quarantine Film Society, as you know.

Okay, watch Carnival of Souls and join us to discuss this our 155th film!

Carnival of Souls (1962) Directed by Herk Harvey

Reactions and Analyses:
Although Carnival of Souls (1962) is not the origin point for person-is-dead-but-doesn’t-know-it-yet film, it certainly must be considered one of the first. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1961), a short film from around the time Herk Harvey was conceiving of his story for Carnival of Souls is perhaps the first – that film is based on a 19th Century short story so it wasn’t a totally new concept. The “Twilight Zone” was incredibly popular on television in the early 1960s and featured a number of episodes where a main character is not alive who may not know it.

And now, in 2024, after we’ve had more than 60 years of films with this premise – most successfully executed in The Sixth Sense (1999) – is the surprise ending of Carnival of Souls really a surprise at all? Most everyone in our QFS discussion group had determined that Mary (Candace Hilligoss) is likely dead and doesn’t know it.

Mary (Candace Hilligoss) emerges from the river after the car she was in plummeted off of a bridge in Carnival of Souls (1962). Or did she?!

So given that, the ending doesn’t really pack a surprise. But perhaps that doesn’t matter all these years later. A film, made on a miniscule budget by a director who worked in industrial and educational films primarily and never made another theatrical feature again – how does a film like endure the test of time?

Herk Harvey, bound by the constraints of the budget and what available locations and resources he had, leaned into his limitations instead of trying to mask them. And beyond that, he uses a true artist’s eye for unnerving and enduring visuals. Take for example an early scene. Mary plays a massive pipe organ in an organ factory. Harvey shoots much of the scene from high above, the long verticals of the pipes reaching upwards like rigid fingers. It evokes a queasiness too, the verticals accentuating the height and creating a sense of unbalance.

Mary surrounded by massive pipes from pipe organs at the factory where they’re made, early in the film.

On the one hand, this is a great premise – an organ player being hired to work in a church who doesn’t feel particularly religious and treats it as a job. On the other hand, we know now that Harvey had access to this particular location in his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. He adapted his story to fit what he had.

One could say that about the actors as well. Candace as Mary is the only professional actor and the rest of the cast are “amateurs” which is a little generous. Many of them were Harvey’s co-workers, and their performances feel out of the ordinary. Something’s amiss with Mrs. Thomas (Frances Feist) the landlord of the home where Mary rented a room. John Linden (Sidney Berger) is extremely, perhaps extraordinarily, aggressive, ready and willing to sexually abuse Mary at the first chance. Dr. Samuels (Stan Levitt) is quite an aggressive doctor. No one acts in a manner that seems quite human.

Candace Hilligoss as Mary, the only professional actor in Carnival of Souls - something that director Herk Harvey turns to his advantage.

Now, on the one hand, this could be just the pitfalls of working with a cast of primarily amateurs. On the other hand, if you write and create a film to use your production’s weakness as an asset, you’re able to use the fact that no one acts quite human to help enhance the feel of the world you’re creating.

The abandoned (is it?) bathhouse occupies Mary’s mind and her nightmares for some reason.

And that’s the overall feel of Carnival of Souls – something is off. Nothing quite fits and that’s likely the point. Mary is in purgatory. And in purgatory, you’re neither alive or dead. Nothing is quite there and nothing is quite gone. In this purgatory, as opposed to Dante’s Divine Comedy where he’s attempting to pass through Purgatory, in Carnival of Souls we meander about throughout it. There’s no driving narrative, no main story in which the protagonist struggles to succeed. Instead, Mary is just mostly wandering around, trying to figure out why things are so off, why she’s obsessed with this abandoned bathhouse on the shore of the Great Salt Lake.

Mary exploring the abandoned bathhouse complex.

This uncertain feeling and mood allows for genuinely creepy imagery. I confess, the first time Mary sees the ghoulish man (NAME???) out the window while driving, I jumped in my seat. Mary looks forward, her reflection in the passenger window with the world going by as the sun’s going down, but then when she looks back it’s not her reflection she sees but our first glimpse of the man who haunts her throughout the film. Then he appears at night in front of the car as she’s about to hit him. It’s so effective at creating a sense of unease, and the film peppers these moments throughout.

This image was incredibly effective in creating an unsettling feeling as Mary drives to her new town.

This image, with a fast car-POV push in, punctuates the driving scene and is really effective in creating horror and suspense.

The man appears to be stalking her, but only she can see him. Then, she’s haunted by him so much that she is unable to sleep and has a nightmare with crash zooms and wailing organ music, images of the Saltair bathouse filling her minds. Later, when she’s playing the organ at her new church, she becomes possessed, playing decidedly un-spiritual music, seeing visions of the ghoulish man dancing with similar-looking people in fast motion, a danse macabre.

Later, she’s in the department store and suddenly no one can hear her or see her, as if she doesn’t exist. She’s driven out, crashing into the arms of a dubious medical professional who isn’t all that helpful. Mary, at wits end from seeing the ghoulish man stalking her, moves her furniture around to block her door, and the filmmakers shoot from outside her lit window – the only thing in the darkness, and her frantic movements inside with the organ music playing. All of these are low cost, high impact storytelling techniques that creates this unsettling feeling.

And Harvey accentuates this with clever filmmaking. His use of high angles makes Mary small and lost in her world, both in the street then later in the abandoned bathhouse. The abandoned bathhouse sequence itself, as many in our group pointed out, displays real cinematographic acumen, using the location and it’s emptiness in an effective way to enhance our sense of unease – especially later when Mary is there and sees all the ghouls with her, trying to pull her down into the afterlife. And they eventually do.

Harvey uses high angles very effectively to make Mary small and lost in the strange world she’s found herself in.

The film is, of course, flawed in many ways. The feeling we had as a group is that the rules of this world are not yet solidified in the way they do years later. For example, there are a number of scenes that Mary wouldn’t be privy to – when the doctor and the landlady talk about Mary’s decision to leave or even after Mary succumbs to the demons at Saltair. The sheriff traces her footsteps and says they know that her car is there and this is where she fell but then the trail disappears.

Mary’s final moments, chased down by the undead.

So… are these people real and Mary existed among them but is gone? Or was this entire extra, post-death life just in Mary’s head while she was drowning to death in the car? And what happened in the bathhouse retreat – were people horribly murdered? Why are they there? These are not major flaws but are story holes that get ironed out later on in films that feature the dead-but-doesn’t-know-it protagonist.

The undead, but … why are they here? What happened? Or does it not matter?

In the end, of course, Carnival of Souls succeeds despite much of its short comings. The fact that the filmmaker knew he had shortcomings all around him posed no obstacle. Instead, he embraced these limitations, wrote his story to fit what he had available to him, and used his meager resources to his advantage. Harvey created a film that should remain a model for scrappy, savvy independent filmmakers – and not just ones who work in stories of horror or fantastical realms. Embrace your limitations and find ways to make your disadvantages into advantages.

Low-fi scares through simple imagery abound in Carnival of Souls (1962).

Beetlejuice (1988)

QFS No. 125 - The invitation for Ocboter 25, 2023
Well, it’s been 124 films in and we’re just now getting to see our first QFS selection of a Tim Burton film. I’m pretty surprised by that, but perhaps it’s because I’ve seen pretty much all of his films from his golden era of the mid 1980s until the 2000s. And then the 2000s hit and, well, the films start getting to be very much hit or miss.

Anyway, we’ll discuss Tim Burton’s legacy and work together so let’s save it for then! But let’s go back to the late 1980s when Beetlejuice comes out. Tim Burton comes out of Cal Arts as an artist with a through knowledge of the horror films from a generation before him. He hit the film scene with a terrific visual style and a unique take on the macabre, the unusual that’s on the fringe of horror and camp, between something that feels like a B-movie and something that feels like a big-budget whimsical fairytale. It’s hard to refute, but there are few directors of the last 40 years who have carved out a visual style so distinctive that their very name becomes shorthand for that style – “Burton-esque” if you will.

Burton’s first feature film was Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) which is a very goofy film road-trip adventure with the eponymous main character who is somewhere between an adult and a child. Not that long after that, he’s hired to direct Batman (1989) – which is astonishing when you think about it. A major studio put a legendary comic book in the hands of Tim Burton, to be the first one to create the Batman movie franchise. It would be akin to Wes Anderson given the reigns to Star Wars.

Burton pulls it off and puts his indelible stamp on Batman, very much leaning into the comic book and not the campy 1960s TV show – but also not the nihilistic action films they become under Christopher Nolan 25 years later. Burton brings a comic book to life and focuses on the eccentric as he does in all his films. Note how this approach, however, failed years earlier with David Lynch at the helm of Dune (1984), in which Lynch focuses on the unusual and grotesque above the adventure and main plot. It’s amazing a studio was still willing to give someone like Burton a shot given how much of a disaster Dune was financially.

Continuing on with Burton – Edward Scissorhands (1990) is quintessential Burton in its art direction, its unusual main character and it’s off-kilter and melancholic feel. Ed Wood (1994), continues in that fashion. There are number of hits he has going forward that feel original – Big Fish (2003), Sleepy Hollow (1999) and his various stop-motion animated films.

But I feel Burton went awry when given the duty of remaking films. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) is a real doozy as is Planet of the Apes (2001) – a film so bad that they remade it a few years later as if this one hadn’t happened, consequently launching an entirely “new*” franchise on the backs of very mediocre films (which we call it in the industry with the technical term: “today’s Hollywood”). Alice in Wonderland (2010) is utterly dreadful and borderline embarrassing as is Dumbo (2019). I could go on about this but you get what I’m saying – Burton’s work is (or was) at its best when he was given freedom to create something original.

And in those films, you’ll see one major common element: off-balance main character anti-heroes. If Edward Scissorhands is quintessential Burton, then this week’s film is probably peak Burton in that regard. (Note I have not mentioned the name of this week’s film three times because I know what happens when you do.) What is the difference between “quintessential” and “peak,” you ask? Well, join us to discuss this, Beetlejuice and also the legacy of Tim Burton.

Beetlejuice (1988) Directed by Tim Burton

Reaction and Analyses
Perhaps the most innovative aspect of Beetlejuice is in its conception of the afterlife. With film’s ability to portray a physical realm with , verisimilitude what happens after you die has been a source of curiosity of filmmakers for more than a century. Constained only by one’s own imagination and influenced by religious traditions, previous artistic renderings of the afterlife, the post-death speculation has been rendered in the movies quite a bit, of course. Examples range from the painterly What Dreams May Come (1998) to the simple pulsating points of light of angels communicating from the stars in It’s A Wonderful Life (1947). There are courts for adjudication as in Defending Your Life (1991) or documentary testimonial interviews in the simple but terrific Afterlife (1998). There are so many more visions of the world of the dead - Coco (2017), Heaven Can Wait (1943 and 1978), Enter the Void (2009) - but these are a few that came to mind. And that doesn’t even touch upon the spirits of the dead walking among us with something left to do (Sixth Sense, 1999, or Ghost, 1990, for example).

Beetlejuice envisions a waiting room, akin to American DVM or any other bureaucratic institution, processesing and helping the recently (or not-so-recently) deceased continue into the afterlife. The afterlife waiting room scene is a pure stroke of Burton-esque genius. Every single character in that scene has a story about their life and their death just by seeing them. There is almost no explanation needed because the costumes of each dead person is so vividly portrayed. The magician’s assistant sawed in half, the office worker who’s been flattened by a car, and of course the hunter with the shrunken head and the tribesman - an entire story unto itself. These scenes are so genius and evoke the Star Wars (1977) cantina. Both are vibrant and bursting with the imagination of the filmmakers and tell stories all their own. (Also - this is the first time I caught that everyone working in the Beetlejuice waiting room all had committed suicide, now doomed to an eternity in civil service. Otho was right!)

The post-mortem processing center, as envisioned by director Tim Burton in Beetlejuice (1988). Those who committed suicide are condemned to work in the civil service - Burton’s trademark grim humor.

Most everyone (but, importantly, not everyone) in the QFS group had seen Beeltejuice but it had been some time. A few things stood out upon this rewatch and the first most obvious aspect is that the title character is barely on screen. He is on screen for 17 minutes. Seventeen! He’s teased and referred to quite a bit, of course, and appears in an “ad” on television, but in my memory of the film he has an outsized portion of screentime. That’s the kind of impact the character leaves on the memory, because when Michael Keaton comes on screen he just completely takes over, with that manic Jim Carrey-energy. He’s so obnoxious and simply lights the film on fire whenever he’s on screen. And man is Beetlejuice perverted. To distract him they have to create an afterlife brothel, which is pretty hilarious. That, in addition to glib jokes about suicide including Lydia (Winona Ryder) actively planning to do herself in - it struck me that this is definitely a film made in 1988 and not 2018.

The story at its core conceit is in part about the perils of making a pact with a gangster, a madman, a devil - and what the costs are. The costs here are that Lydia will be doomed to be stuck with a gross fellow. Yeah, that’s a sort of high price? The script, though textbook, has flaws that became apparent during viewing and discussion that I’ll get to below.

The opening shot of this film is excellent. What appears to be a helicopter or crane shot over the village, combined with Danny Elfman’s unforgettable score only to land on a wide shot of the (model) home. It’s not until the tarantula crests the roof and Adam (Alec Baldwin)’s hand reaches down to pick it up do you realize you’ve been seeing a model for the duration of that shot.

Opening shot of Beetlejuice (1988) is not a helicopter shot over a small town, it turns out.

Katherine O’Hara is so fantastic, especially when they’re possesed and singing “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” - boy that scene just comes out of nowhere and still is such goofy fun. The performances, everyone agreed, are overall solid but I personally felt that Winona Ryder was … not. Or was she just in a different movie? When Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam are trying to scare off the family but they fail and Beetlejuice, when they first “hire” him, becomes a giant snake, Ryder’s Lydia screams “I hate you! I hate all of you!” and it’s just totally odd. But now I’m thinking that this is a flaw of screenwriting to some extent. She is playing the quintessential Burton misunderstood teen goth girl, but isn’t given enough rope or scenes to be truly surprised, develop a rapport, then to earn a feeling of betrayal at that moment. The film, though following a sort of textbook “Save the Cat” type of script, it felt that it was thin with a noticeable lag in the middle of the script. Also, when Barbara comes in riding a snake, they’re violating the mythology of the story. No where beforehand was the snake anything other than something preventing their escape from the home. Where did she get the idea to do this? And how? And how did that work so easily? The filmmakers blow past the logic there in order to tie it up with a bang. Also - no one really has a character arc.

And yet, it’s still a classic, unique story that still holds up - Beetlejuice’s perversity aside. In fact, several in the group agreed that the scene where Otho conjurs up Adam and Barbara in their wedding clothes and they steadily age and start to die as a particularly harrowing and moving scene. It’s one that stayed with me, and several of us, over the years.

Last point - it’s truly amazing to me is that someone at a studio saw Tim Burton’s work and said “yes, that’s the man who we want to direct Batman (1989)!” In similar fashion, George Lucas strongly considered David Lynch to direct Return of the Jedi (1983) - Lynch of coruse did go on to direct a (rightly) trashed Dune (1984). Regardless of the results, the very fact of this is really astonishing. Both are such visionaries but with such avant-garde or “quirky” filmmaking styles, making movies in the equivalent of a hand-painted VW van, were given the keys to drive a street-racing Ferrari. What a different time! Nowadays, if you make some really terrific independent film or two, you could be considered for a Marvel film or perhaps helm a spinoff for a big-budget streaming series. But to launch the Batman franchise and truly ignite an era of comic book film adaptations? Amazing. Instead of dwelling on that long-gone past where studio executives were willing to take high risks, I’m choosing to see that as inspiration for all of us working away here in Hollywoodland.