Film Review: SHED OF THE DEAD (2019)

 SHED OF THE DEAD (2019) UK 1hr 22mins

Director: Drew Cullingham

"To be honest gardenings not really my thing." - Trevor

"Online gamers... heathens!!!" - Graham

"Ain't no ice cream in your future." - Doc

This totally bonkers British zombie comedy sees the "between jobs" Trevor (Spencer Brown) spend his days locked in his shed on his allotment, not doing gardening mind... he hates gardening! He goes there more to avoid his over bearing wife Bobbi (Lauren Socha), spending his time brewing his own vodka called Trevoff and painting his D&D figures which he plays with round his friend Grahams (Ewen MacIntosh) as often as possible. One of the other allotment tenants Mr. Parsons (Kane Hodder) interrupts Trevor in his shed with a petition signed by the other tenants to remove Trevor and an argument ensues. The quarrel ends in an unfortunate accident and Trevor is left with a rather large Mr. Parsons sized problem to dispose of. Luckily for Trevor the zombie apocalypse erupts at about this time meaning he is off the hook but now he and Graham must battle the undead to find out if Bobbi and her friend Harriet (Emily Booth) are alive and in need of saving!

SHED OF THE DEAD is ridiculously crude, crass and incredibly hilarious! With it's absolutely awesome opening titles done in the style of a graphic novel depicting the zombie apocalypse in full swing with the undead everywhere. If you pay close attention you will spot some familiar faces (I recognised Tom Savini, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames and George A. Romero) now walking amongst the living dead. Also added in are some cool nods to DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) "This isn't Dawn Of The Dead Bobbi and we're not in a shopping mall!!" and a bit of poke at 28 DAYS LATER (2002) with a 28 fortnights later segment. Joining Spencer Brown, Lauren Socha, Ewen MacIntosh, Kane Hodder and Emily Booth we also have cameos from Bill Moseley as Doc the cowboy, Michael Berryman as Derek and narration by none other than Brian Blessed!

I enjoyed SHED so much I watched it again straight after my first watch. It's cheesy and stupid, kind of gory, nerdy and just brilliant fun... everything you want in a zombie movie! There is something for everyone, bad jokes, deliberate timing, some great animation and graphics, hilarious fantasy sequences, Michael Berryman dressed as a PVC horse and some great zombies! Taking their cue from some familiar movies, SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004) for example, and a little bit of DANCE OF THE DEAD (2008) , which I am sure you will notice straight away but the main salute to SHAUN (and the Romeros) are probably the zombies. I would say a fair amount of thought has gone into the undead here as there are some great stand out individuals. There is, of course, a zombie clown, a stripper (or two) and some zombie kids. My personal favourite is the crossing guard zombie. They are the slow, shuffling type and sport a great array of costumes. The FX are a combination of practical and GCI which works most of the time, there are a couple of CGI blood splatters that don't look great but there are lots of bloody limbs and some cool bite wounds. Plenty of fake blood here too but graphic gore and gut munching in great detail are kind of left out replaced by fantasy sequences and small bits of animation which in my opinion is still really quite fun. Script wise it's pretty spot on and quintessentially working class England. The soundtrack is not particularly memorable as I've already kind of forgotten it whilst doing this write up but I don't recall disliking it. Director Drew Cullingham had the idea for SHED way back in 2015 and it took a while in the making before it's first appearance at film festivals in 2019.

According to it's poor reviews on IMDb it has not been a big hit with many so I consider myself in the minority as a fan and I will always stand up for it. SHED OF THE DEAD is not to be taken seriously and I don't believe it is trying to be the new SHAUN OF THE DEAD (it is certainly not family friendly) but what it is is hilarious, immature, a ton of fun and utterly bonkers. For me SHED OF THE DEAD gets 3.5 brains out of 5.

SHED OF THE DEAD is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime and to purchase on DVD and Blu Ray.