I've been a massive fan of the zombie genre long before the modern movie revival and for that I pat myself smugly on the back. By the time Shaun Of The Dead was released, my survival plan for any pending undead apocalypse was already firmly in place, scrawled out on several A4 sheets of paper for my friend Matt and I to easily reference when the time came, and I can assure you, it amount to a lot more than just sitting in the dark and eating peanuts.
For the sake of argument, I'm going to apply the Shaun survival treatment to my own real-world setting to draw up a comparable benefit ratio between scenarios. In the film, after the characters are set up and the outbreak takes hold, Shaun and Ed unanimously agree that their local pub The Winchester, featuring across the front of today's THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE challenge T Shirt donation from Richard at 8ball.co.uk, would be an ideal refuge from the horror. My local pub is in fact my local Toby Carvery and is conveniently positioned next door (only one panel of fencing to vault over/fall through), making the journey less epic.
Unlike The Winchester, the Carvery is not named for the deactivated/activated rifle behind the bar, but rather the reasonably priced meat you can enjoy for supper, so shooting the invading ghouls would be less attainable. On the other hand, the selection of meats to hurl at them is quite extensive, as is the impressive variety of flavoured gravies and sauces, however ineffective.
Finally, the dead-bolts, double doors and basement retreat utilised by Shaun and posse in the Winchester are all to be desired at the Carvery; the village-like aesthetic of the detached cottage has been achieved by building windows on virtually every wall, leaving its patrons entirely exposed to both curious potential diners and, well, undead potential diners.
In conclusion, deviating from my original strategy would actually place me in a worse situation than Shaun and Ed, so I'll stick with the outline Matt and I drew up all those years ago, which if needed today, would make my Top Selling T Shirt from 8ball.co.uk all the more ironic.
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