15, 95 mins

Following hot on the heels of the superior remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead comes the British take on the theme. Shaun of the Dead, styled as a “rom-zom-com”, comes from the comedy stable behind the cult TV sitcom Spaced.

Simon Pegg stars as Shaun, a terminal underachiever whose relationship breakdown and dead-end career is interrupted by a zombie apocalypse in Crouch End. In classic zombie-movie style, the principal characters manage to ignore warning signs such as emergency news broadcasts and the cadavers lurching along the privet-lined suburban streets.

However Pegg, who co-wrote with the director Edgar Wright, allows the joke to run longer than normal. Even the arrival of a zombie girl in Shaun’s back garden initially fails to warn him that something is amiss. His flatmate Ed’s first response when the girl tries to chew Shaun’s face off is to get his camera. Their second response is to throw a mug-tree at her. It is, in terms of pacing, comic references and home furnishings, an undeniably British production, and hugely enjoyable for it.

The cast takes its pick of credible British sitcom actors. Alongside Pegg, there’s Dylan Moran of Black Books and Lucy Davis from The Office. But, reassuringly after the Sex Lives of the Potato Men debacle, the move from small to big screen seems relatively effortless in this case, largely thanks to a well-crafted script and snappy editing. The supporting cast may be brain-dead, but the film certainly isn’t.

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