The funniest Shaun of the Dead quotes are only part of what makes Edgar Wright’s first movie in his Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy a cult classic. The greatest success of Shaun Of The Dead, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, is that it isn’t a spoof of zombie movies. It works perfectly as a genuine zombie film in its own right — one that happens to be absolutely hilarious. The jokes are the cherry on top of the undead cake, and the best Shaun of the Dead quotes ensured the 2004 movie’s lasting legacy.
Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead remains one of the most popular comedies of the 21st century. It has the perfect blend of horror and hilarity, with both laugh-out-loud moments and moments of genuine terror in spades. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost even recreated a scene from Shaun of the Dead for a viral video about the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic, using lines from the original movie to instruct people to stay at home and remain safe. It shows that the best Shaun of the Dead quotes extends beyond more than just zombie apocalypses.
When Shaun leaves the group to guide the horde of zombies away from the Winchester, David criticizes Shaun’s self-appointed leadership. He says, “Do you think his master plan will be anything more than sitting around, eating peanuts in the dark?” After Shaun arrives, and they ask him what his plan is, the movie cuts to the characters sitting in the dark, with Shaun holding up a bag of nuts and asking, “Would anyone like a peanut?”
These Shaun of the Dead quotes do two things when it comes to the progression of the story. First, it proves that Shaun really has no idea what he is doing and that he might be in over his head. However, it also shows that David might be right about Shaun, and this puts more questions in the groups’ minds about whether they can and should trust Shaun to lead them during this zombie apocalypse.
This exchange initially appears early in the movie, and is repeated toward the end of Shaun of the Dead. In both cases, Shaun and Ed refer to songs playing on the jukebox at inappropriate times. After Liz has dumped Shaun, Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” plays on the jukebox, exacerbating his heartache as Ed tries everything to cheer him up. Sadly, the music makes it impossible to get Shaun to stop feeling bad about himself after the breakup.
Later in the movie, a zombified John comes into the pub, and Shaun, Ed, and Liz fight him off with pool cues, and Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” starts playing. While the songs playing in both instances are seemingly random, they play into the scenes. This is normal for most movie soundtracks, but what Edgar Wright does with this hilarious Shaun of the Dead quote is point out how convenient it is that the random jukebox songs were contextually perfect for the moments they appeared, slightly pulling back the curtain somewhat,
When Shaun, Liz, and Ed retreat into the cellar of the Winchester, with the zombies bearing down on them, they contemplate suicide. They only have two shells left in the rifle, so only two of them can go. Ed volunteers to be the one who will shoot his friends and then allow the zombies to kill him when all is said and done. However, he quickly changes his mind when Shaun and Liz re-confess their love for one another and share a tender romantic moment. After this sweet moment, Ed wants to take the bullet to end it all.
It is a particularly hilarious Shaun of the Dead quote because, even during a zombie apocalypse, Ed refuses to stop being himself and continues to poke fun at Shaun, and as a result, also Liz, every chance he gets. Despite death literally knocking at the door at that moment, Ed had to be Ed and give his friend a hard time just when things were getting a little too romantic for his taste.
When the zombie apocalypse begins and Shaun and Ed finally figure out what’s going on, Shaun calls his mother to see if she’s okay. She says that a “bitey” person got into the house and Shaun fears she’s been bitten. She says that she hasn’t been bitten, but her husband, Philip has. Shaun isn’t Philip’s biggest fan, so he sighs with relief. Ed asks for an update and Shaun nonchalantly tells him, “We may have to kill my stepdad.”
Shaun spent a lot of the movie explaining to people why he hates his stepdad, although it all comes down to him and his stepdad not understanding each other. Philip wants Shaun to spend more time with his mother and call her more. However, all Shaun sees is someone who “isn’t his real dad” telling him what to do all the time. When Philip finally dies and tells Shaun he only wants the best for him, it is an emotional moment, and this Shaun of the Dead quote really helps set up the surprisingly heartwarming scene.
The significance that Shaun projects onto the second album he ever bought is hilariously relatable. Ultimately, the second album a person buys isn’t that important, but Shaun still freaks out when Pete throws it out the window. There’s a nostalgia attached to that album, although it ends up being used as a weapon against the first wave of zombies faced by Shaun and Ed. Right before Ed throws it, and they get the idea to use Shaun’s record collection to fight them off, Shaun repeats this line.
This is one of several Shaun of the Dead quotes that is also slick foreshadowing, which is something Edgar Wright specializes in when making his movies. Pete throwing the album out the window led to Shaun’s funny comment, but it also led to the moment where that specific record came into play to help Shaun and Ed survive a very slow-moving zombie attack. Of course, his sentimentality goes out the window when it comes to survival.
This Shaun of the Dead quote work two-fold when rewatching the movie today. Upon first viewing, it’s a funny gag that undercuts Shaun’s arrogance with some well-timed (and well-performed) slapstick. But since this movie, it went on to become a recurring gag in the Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy. It’s a lot of nostalgic fun to hear Shaun utter the line, “What’s the matter, David? Never taken a shortcut before?” before falling over a garden fence.
The way that Shaun picks himself up and dusts himself off, trying to pretend it never happened, is the icing on top of this moment’s comedic cake. Things worked out much better for Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz, where he not only made it over the fence but did flips over several more before Nick Forst stumbled right through the fence. The World’s End caps off the joke by having a Cornetto wrapper get caught up in the wires of a fence, also unable to get past it.
Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have a way of making repeated lines work brilliantly for comedy in their movies — for example, “The Greater Good” line from Hot Fuzz — because the movie’s events force the context to change. At the beginning of Shaun of the Dead, one of his rude coworkers tells him, “You’ve got red on you,” referring to the red ink stain on his shirt pocket. What makes this joke work so well is that people say it to him more times in the movie, and it has nothing to do with ink.
By the end of Shaun of the Dead, the “red” that is on his white shirt is a bunch of blood-spatter stains from hitting zombies with a cricket bat. The line was so popular that it ended the name of the making-of book that detailed how Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost made the zombie apocalypse cult classic (You’ve Got Red on You: How Shaun of the Dead Was Brought to Life).
One of the funniest gags in Shaun of the Dead, and one that would stand on its own as a sketch outside the movie, is the one in which Shaun and Ed go through Shaun’s record collection and decide which records they should throw at the zombies. It’s funny because even though these flesh-eating monsters are approaching the guys, and they want to eat their brains, Shaun still doesn’t want to break any of his favorite albums.
So, when Ed suggests the classics, he turns him down: “Purple Rain.” “Nope.” “Sign o’ the Times.” “Definitely not.” “The Batman soundtrack.” “Throw it.” It was funny because Batman has always been controversial thanks to the dance beat playing over a Batman movie. However, the joke also has another level of humor to it. Not only was this a Batman soundtrack, but it is officially Prince’s 11th studio album. This joke had Shaun admit that Prince’s Purple Rain and Sign o’ the Times are classics, but the Batman soundtrack is expendable.
As soon as the news plays on TV that civilians are being advised to keep their doors and windows locked during the zombie apocalypse, Shaun quickly remembers that Ed tends to leave the front door unlocked, and also cracked open. As they are watching this TV broadcast, something pushes open the door and walks in, and then the camera starts panning out, and it shows a zombie in the house. It’s missing one of its arms, which is the first thing Shaun notices when it staggers into the room.
“He’s got an arm off!” Shaun ends up yelling, as they start throwing things at him to slow him down. Ed ends up taking the guy out with an ashtray and then stands over his corpse, panting for a while. This Shaun of the Dead quote is one of several that are great examples of horror and comedy being weirdly intertwined to allow both the fear and hilarity that come from Shaun and Ed facing a ridiculous situation.