Formal Film Study: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End

  I have a confession to make: until recently, I had never seen either of the following films, despite the fact that they are all notable geek favorites and I myself am a geek.  This is particularly shocking because all three of these films are directed by Edgar Wright, who directed the box-office failure that is still beloved by many, myself included; "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World".  He is also apparently the same director who left the Ant-Man film project at Marvel over creative differences, so I am still kicking myself for never having seen these films until recently.  So I decided now would be a perfect time to watch all three of these films back to back and study what makes these films similar and different.

  "Shaun of the Dead" is the story of Shaun (Simon Pegg), a slacker living in London who works a mediocre job at an electronics shop where his younger colleagues hate him, lives at home with his housemates, the very uptight Pete (Peter Serafinowicz) and fellow slacker/drug dealer Ed (Nick Frost), has an overprotective mother, Barbara (Penelope Wilton) and troubled relationship with his step-father Phillip (Bill Nighy), and is struggling to keep his relationship with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield).  One day, a zombie apocalypse breaks out, and Shaun and his friends must stick together to try and survive.

  "Hot Fuzz" is the story of British police officer Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), who despite being the best performing officer on thee force, is forced to relocate due to just that, because therefore the rest of the police look incompetent by comparison.  He moves to the small, boring town of Sanford, Gloucestershire, where he joins the police force run by Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent) and is ridiculed by all of the other officers except Frank's son, Danny (Nick Frost), with whom he strikes up a friendship.  Then all of a sudden, people start turning up murdered, but are being reported as nothing more than accidents.  Sensing that things are not as they seem, Angel decides he needs to take charge and determine who is commiting these murders and why.

  "The World's End" is the story of five childhood friends, Gary King (Simon Pegg), Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman), and Peter Page (Eddie Marsan).  They had attempted a pub crawl at the point of graduating high school, but failed.  Years later, while everyone else has moved on with their lives, Gary wants to try the crawl again, and convinces all of his friends to come back with him to their hometown of Newton Haven.  Just as they are getting started with their pub crawl, the inhabitants of the town start acting suspiciously, and soon they start attempting to fight for their lives in addition to finishing the pub crawl.

  What these films do that I love is that they feature much of the same cast, but never as the same characters.  They each tell their own separate story with their own separate themes, while also satirizing different genres.  Shaun of the Dead is meant to be a parody of zombie films, with plenty of clever references to classic zombie films, particularly the classic George A. Romero films like "Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead", and "Day of the Dead".  Hot Fuzz is meant to be a spoof of classic cop films like "48 Hrs." and "Lethal Weapon", most evident in a scene where two characters sit down to watch "Point Break" and  "Bad Boys II" (I knew I couldn't be the only one who loves that movie.... DON'T JUDGE ME!).  The World's End is meant to be a satire of body invasion science fiction films such as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".  And while I mentioned in my Kingsman review that parody films have kind of left me behind, much like Kingsman (also directed by a British man, maybe that's why), these films manage to do it in a way that is consistently funny, and you can tell that Wright has actually seen these films and loved them.

  Something particularly interesting about these films is the way Wright shoots and edits.  He manages to get laughs from the way he edits a scene together and the sound effects he uses, because the cuts are so jarring and they cut to such funny situations, and the sound effects are timed perfectly to match the feeling of a scene.  He also finds humor in camera movements from pans, to things entering/exiting the frame, to zooms.  There is also an amusing running gag in each film involving a character attempting to climb over a fence that somehow never gates old, and an actor who has played James Bond appears in the latter two films.  These techniques are also evident in Scott Pilgrim.

  So, overall, while these films may be different in genre and story, they are very much the same in terms of style and sense of humor.  They also contain fascinating themes including the idea of growing up, the dullness of suburban life, and the incompetence of the police force.  And that is why both of these films are so appealing even to people who have not seen the films they are making fun of, and why Edgar Wright has officially become one of my favorite directors.