As I was talking about Working Title, why not have a look at one of their films. A favourite of mine and I'm sure many others is the horror-comedy parody of Night of the Living Dead; Shaun of the Dead.
Shaun of the Dead follows our main character Shaun, played by Simon Pegg, whose life basically has no direction. He's in a dead end job of selling TV's, has a rocky relationship with his stepfather Phil, Bill Nighy, a tense relationship with his flat-mate Pete, Peter Serafinowicz, because of his best friend Ed, Nick Frost, and his girl-friend Liz, Kate Ashfield, isn't happy with their social life because it will usually be involving going to the pub The Winchester all the time. Things don't look good for Shaun as he forgets it's his and Liz's anniversary one day so she breaks up with him. Plus to make matters worse his flatmate is going down hard on Shaun for having Ed around. So Shaun drinks away his sorrows in the Winchester that night.
Next morning it turns out the dead have come back to life and are attacking the neighbourhood. So its up to Shaun to save his friends and Liz's life as well as their relationship. It does have a hilarious sense of "Oh by the way zombies are attacking, hope that isn't going to ruin your plans" which I think is great. As a parody it's great and really throws the zombie genre in the air. The zombies are perfect it's just how Shaun and Ed react to them that makes it funny. They're these terrifying re-incarnations of humans and yet Shaun and Ed are outside, about to be eaten, arguing over what vinyl disc records to throw at the zombies. Not something you'd be doing in that situation. One of my favourite parts is actually re-visit of the same scene but from earlier in the film. Towards the beginning Shaun goes out to get ice-cream from the shop and then comes back. Its all done as a 1-shot scene as it never actually cuts, it stays as one camera that follows Shaun all the way to the shop and back. Everything goes on around him like kids playing football, people jogging and people just generally walking to the shop. This scene is before the zombies attack. My favourite part is the reprise of this scene where Shaun goes to the shop the next day, unaware there's a zombie outbreak and its the same 1 shot but everything has changed and he's completely oblivious. It's hilarious and really clever. The camera goes to his side so we see inside a garden where there's a corpse and Shaun just walks straight past. He pushes an actual zombie out of the way and says "sorry, don't have any change". It's so surreal to see it in a zombie film and its so well done and funny.
It's a parody of zombie films sure but I think it also parodies society in it too. Before the zombie attack everyone is acting like zombies anyway, the intro with the title screen just shouts this. That's why also Shaun mistakes a zombie walking up to him as a regular homeless guy because of how similar he looks. It takes a zombie like society and adds real zombies, that's where the real parody lies for me. The script is hilarious, the characters are great, really cleverly filmed and the zombies in it are great. If you're not so much a horror fan it's worth the watch anyway because of it's humour and if you liked the Living Dead series of films then you'll laugh even more at this.
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