Having not seen “Dawn of the Dead” and having been disappointed by terrible British humor in the past, I admit that I was initially a little apprehensive about watching the latest zombie movie spoof. However, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of the dry wit that sets “Shaun of the Dead” apart from the genre of super-cheesy horror-satire films. At the end of the film, you can tell the filmmakers have paid arduous attention to recent horror movies, and even if you haven’t seen them, “Shaun of the Dead” is still an incredibly funny flick.

Writers Edgar Wright (who directs) and Simon Pegg (who also plays the main character, Shaun) nicknamed their movie a “zom-rom-com,” for zombie romantic comedy, which in itself defines how offbeat the movie is from the start. The writers delight in making hilarious puns on the redundant clich