With that in mind, we here at The Film Magazine are to judge the always referential, always funny and clearly artistic talents of one of mainstream film’s most unique directors. In this latest edition of Ranked, we’re looking to the Cornetto Trilogy and beyond to proffer which films from Edgar Wright’s feature directorial filmography are the best and which are the worst, judging each entry on artistic merit, cultural significance and popular consensus.

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7. Last Night in Soho (2021)

Last Night in Soho Review

A love letter to all things 60s, Last Night in Soho’s ambition can get the better of it sometimes, though it remains an ambitious attempt at an out-and-out horror from director Edgar Wright; one anchored by strong performances from Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy.

The first half is especially effective at capturing swinging 60s Soho, London in its heyday with some fine cinematography from Park Chan-wook regular Chung-hoon Chung.

Last Night in Soho falls towards the lower end of Wright’s filmography, mostly due to its final act which split audiences and critics, though it remains a worthwhile watch due to its loving craftsmanship and knockout 60s soundtrack.

6. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Review

This is a fine first foray away from collaboration’s with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for Edgar Wright, and is a great showcase for his unique blend of action, humour and pathos.

Focusing on down on his luck Scott Pilgrim and his relationship with his area’s newest arrival Ramona, Scott Pilgrim boasts some fantastic set pieces between the titular Scott and a series of Ramona’s exes.

It falls lower in Wright’s filmography as it is perhaps lacking some of the universal appeal of his earlier works, but make no mistake that Scott Pilgrim shows off Wright’s love of comic books and video games, with some scenes acting as clear homages to both forms of entertainment and the film remaining a must-watch for fans of the director’s work.

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The Sparks Brothers (2021)
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ron Mael, Russell Mael, Edgar Wright

Whether you’ve seen one Edgar Wright film or his entire filmography, one thing is apparent: his love of music. Whether that be shown through the likes of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, or through his more music-centered films such as Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim vs the World, it is clear that the man loves music, with the soundtracks of his movies being consistently lauded for their quality and their impact on the films themselves, particularly with regard to how each of them are edited. Wright is a self-confessed music fanboy and this is no more apparent than through his social media accounts, each of which he often updates with excellent curated Spotify playlists, from Top 50 of the Year collections to playlists specific to David Bowie and Ennio Morricone. Over the past few years, one of Edgar Wright’s most vocal loves has been that of Sparks, which first became obvious with his original Sparks for Beginners playlist (now “The Sparks Brothers – Official Film Playlist”). The famed director’s love of music – and specific love of Sparks – makes him the perfect choice for director of a documentary on brothers Ron and Russell Mael aka The Sparks Brothers.

Sparks are a famously mysterious band, as pointed out in the trailer when Julia Marcus offers the soundbite statement that Sparks “are a band who you can look up on wikipedia and know nothing!” Given that the story of the Mael brothers is shrouded in mystery whilst also having lasted fifty years, one must take a well thought out approach in portraying the story of their lives and that of the band. Wright’s approach could be argued to be formulaic due to its structure in going from album to album in chronological order, yet the story of Sparks simply does not allow for the structure to seem placid, with each of the band’s albums (and consequentially the periods in each of the Mael’s lives) being unique in their own way. Wright bringing some structure to the insane story of the band actually allows the whacky real-life narrative to be told in a cohesive manner. 

At a runtime of 2 hours and 20 minutes many would feel as though The Sparks Brothers is rather long for a documentary (though fans of Mark Cousins’ work might disagree), yet the sheer volume of information Edgar Wright is able to tell throughout this runtime is astonishing; The Sparks Brothers covers all 25 Sparks albums, how they were made, their legacies, best songs, music videos, press at the time, etc., whilst also covering the upbringing of the brothers, how they came to love music, stories of their first bands, and even going so far as to cover multiple failed film projects as well as their famous 21 concerts in a row, playing every album of theirs in full. Multiple moments in the careers of the Spark Brothers would be worthy of feature length documentaries themselves, but somehow Edgar Wright manages to tell it all in one movie whilst never conveying the feeling that any one section receives favour over another.

While the volume of information being told at any one time throughout The Sparks Brothers is enough to save the film from dragging, Paul Trewartha’s editing of the documentary keeps the film moving at a brisk pace with a tempo and rhythm almost as catchy as those found within the music of Sparks. Much of this is helped by Wright’s excellent choices of Sparks songs to play throughout the documentary, all of which further compliment each era of the band, bringing more meaning to the story being told and vice versa.

On top of this, the band have been so influential throughout their careers that the documentary also works as its own mini-history of music over the past half century. Even through moments in time in which Sparks were far removed (ie, the Punk explosion of the 70s), the documentary fills in the blanks, adding layer after layer to an already rich offering. 

Despite the truly fascinating story, Wright’s excellent use of the band’s entire discography, the editing, the pacing, and the sheer volume of information told in the film’s runtime, perhaps the greatest aspect of The Sparks Brothers is its use of talking heads. This is something the film itself pokes fun at, its own trailer featuring a line from the brothers that states: “we didn’t want to do the standard documentary full of talking heads […] it would become too dry”, each doused in water shortly thereafter. By conducting the interviews himself, Wright (subtitled as “fanboy” in the doc) successfully creates an atmosphere of Sparks fans nerding-out together, allowing for each interview to seem truly natural and for every single interviewee’s passion for the music to shine through. Vitally, Wright has assembled a brilliant and varied cast of interviewees that spans from fellow musicians to actors, writers, journalists, directors and fans, showing the true reach of Sparks. As well as this, the sheer number of interviews filmed for the movie allows for each album and era of the band to be represented by their own unique set of talking heads.

With The Sparks Brothers it is blatantly apparent that Sparks were the best subject matter for Edgar Wright to cover in his first foray into documentary filmmaking, and equally that Wright was the best director to make a long-awaited documentary about the Mael brothers. The passion of the director, and everyone else involved, never fails to shine through in The Sparks Brothers, just as the genius of Sparks themselves never seems to fade.

This documentary is an impeccable 2-hours-plus of pure joy.

23/24

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Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Director: Edgar Wright
Screenwriters: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Peter Serafinowicz, Rafe Spall, Bill Nighy

16 years after its release, Shaun of the Dead remains one of the best loved British comedies of the contemporary era; a release that, alongside its fellow Cornetto Trilogy entries Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, has had a profound effect on the British cinematic landscape.

The much loved sitcom ‘Spaced’ (1999-2001) launched the careers of its stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, as well as director Edgar Wright. Over the past two decades, the trio have all come to have considerable success on both sides of the Atlantic, with Pegg finding major roles in both the Mission: Impossible & Star Trek franchises, Frost starring in hits like Fighting with My Family, and Wright going on to direct cult favourites like Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World and 2017’s hugely successful Baby Driver.

Rewatching Shaun of the Dead following the success later achieved by those involved is fascinating as it offers glimpses behind the success of the aforementioned trio. The film focuses on Shaun (Pegg) and Ed (Frost), a pair of unhappy late 20s flatmates struggling to get by in London – there is also heavy focus on the struggling relationship between Shaun and his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). The early parts of the film play out almost like a buddy film, or a rom-com, such is the blend of laddish humour and focus given to Shaun and Liz’s relationship.

Coming fresh off the heels of ‘Spaced’ there are clear comparisons to be drawn, and Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have mentioned how the show had a heavy influence on the film in many interviews over the years since, but much rather than it being a carbon copy of the cult favourite TV sitcom, these influences are minimal and help to provide the film with a degree of familiarity to those in-the-know, while never being overwhelming to those who aren’t – Pegg’s ‘Spaced’ co-star Jessica Hynes (then Stevenson) appears in a recurring cameo role for example, an element of Shaun of the Dead that is both in tribute to the filmmakers’ days on television but also unique to the film.

In addition, Shaun of the Dead is clearly made as a tribute to zombie and horror films, particularly those of horror icon George A. Romero – most obviously Dawn of the Dead (where this film got its name), itself a second entry into Romero’s own zombie movie series following Night of the Living Dead.

There are frequent examples underlining why Wright is seen as one of the most talented British directors of his generation in Shaun of the Dead. An extended tracking shot in the opening sequence following Shaun from his flat to the local shop is a fantastic piece of cinematography, and the choice to mirror this with the same shot later in the film once the world has been turned upside down by zombies is one that is both intelligently cinematic and truly funny. The misdirects early in the film are of the highest comedic sensibility too, with the use of imagery to evoke the pending zombie arrival providing some fantastic sight gags.

The humour is a huge part of what makes the film work and much of this comes down to the chemistry between Pegg and Frost. We are introduced to several recurring motifs from the rest of the Cornetto Trilogy with gags about shops, fence hurdling and pub fights all reappearing in some shape or form in Hot Fuzz and The World’s End. In spite of this, the screenplay of Wright and Pegg manages to blend more serious moments with its outright comedy, realising a surprising amount depth and character development for a film of its genre.

The use of music is crucial to many of Wright’s films, particularly Baby Driver, and Shaun of the Dead is no exception. Music is used to incredible effect, opening to The Specials’ “Ghost Town” and featuring multiple Queen tracks, “Don’t Stop Me Now” taking on a life of its own as the now iconic soundtrack to the pub brawl in the final act. In keeping with this marrying of music and film, one of the film’s best gags revolves around which of Shaun’s vinyl collection should be used as weapons against the Zombies, he and Ed having a back and forth regarding the importance of certain records as they fight off one of their slow but seemingly unstoppable foes.

Shaun of the Dead has amassed legions of fans in the 16 years since its release, with Empire Magazine placing it 6th in its list of Top 100 British Films and horror icon Stephen King dubbing it “10 on the fun meter and destined to be a cult classic”. It’s clear to see why this opening Cornetto Trilogy film has come to be so beloved and influential amongst comedy filmmakers, the first cinematic collaboration between Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright being a superbly written and acted film that lays an outstanding platform from which the trio have reached to great heights; one of the earliest examples of Wright’s unique brilliance at blending humour and pathos.

19/24

Written by Christopher Connor

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It’s hard to remember exactly where the concept of zombies originated when the idea has taken its own form and stumbled into different sub-categories of… what exactly a zombie is, how they’re created, what they do, how to kill them, and so on. We all know humans can devolve into a zombie through a virus outbreak like in 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002), or from the radiation of an atomic bomb, an alien invasion, a green syringe of glowing gunge like in Re-Animator (Gordon, 1985), or voodoo…

Voodoo is the idea we thank for giving us these slow moving, brain eating monsters we’ve grown to love shooting in the head.

An initial sighting of what we now associate with being as a zombie can be recorded in I Walked With A Zombie (Tourneur, 1943), and was commonly recognised as a tall, muscular, glassy eyed, black man formed using Haitian Voodoo. This was taken from the idea of Baron Samedi, master of the dead, a spirit who can be summoned by a Houngan (voodoo priest). You may recognise Baron Samedi in the James Bond film Live And Let Die (Hamilton, 1973) depicted by Geoffrey Holder.

Live and Let Die (1973)

John Landis claims in his 2011 book “Monsters in the Movies” that “In Haitian Voodoo, a houngan uses poisons and ritual burials to convince victims that they are dead. The houngan then uses their new zombies to pick sugar cane and for other menial tasks. Many claim that this practise continues today. In Voodoo and in the movies, zombies are symbols of exploitation and social decay” (Landis, 2011 – pg. 93). The first appearance of an on-screen zombie actually starred in White Zombie (Halperin, 1932) with the same concept; Haitian voodoo used to create sugar cane slaves. Fun fact: in Haitian, ‘zombi’ means ‘spirit of the dead’.

A similar theme runs through to the 1960s with Hammer’s film The Plague Of The Zombies (Gilling, 1966) where the zombies are created (through witchcraft) for slavery or to be soldiers. Back in the day, zombies were manipulated by higher beings, but as time has moved on, the controlled chaos of zombies has become less controlled, causing apocalyptic level pandemonium.

The 1960s and 70s are where eating the flesh of the living (specifically the brains) became popularised. Zombies were no longer slaves, but rather dangerous, hungry, slimy uncivilised versions of our selves, though often slightly comical. They were the common subject of most grindhouse B-movies, like in Rodriguez’s 2007 homage Planet Terror. Landis points out their comedic side is evident in Return Of The Living Dead (O’Bannon, 1985), a movie in which the zombies can speak. “A police car is surrounded by hungry zombies who viciously attack the two cops inside and then gleefully eat their brains. The patrol car’s radio crackles and a voice asks if they need assistance. One of the zombies clumsily takes the microphone and croaks “send more cops”. (Landis, 2011 – pg. 94). They even start to run in Danny Boyle’s 2002 picture 28 Days Later.

28 Days Later (2002)

“In contemporary films, zombies are frequently agents of anarchy and represent the collapse of an orderly society” (Landis, 2011 – pg. 94), and thus it’s every man for himself in these high intensity, heart pounding flicks. Modern zombie classics such as Zombieland (Fleischer, 2009), 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002), 28 Weeks Later (Fresnadillo, 2007) and Shaun Of The Dead (Wright, 2004) all take the form of George A. Romero’s original ‘every man for himself, havoc and chaos’ classic, mothership of a zombie movie: Night Of The Living Dead (Romero, 1968). Margo Smith says in her article “The Evolution Of Zombie Cinema” that “Night of the Living Dead was the quintessential, classic zombie film that most future zombie films would be modelled after”(Smith, 2018). The structure of which goes; zombie outbreak starts, unleash chaos onto the streets, group of survivors band together, until each is picked off one by one… George A. Romero is the daddy of zombie flicks, with other films such as Dawn Of The Dead (1978), Day Of The Dead (1985) and Land Of The Dead (2005). “This was also the start of the traditionally slow moving, brain-dead like monster who can be destroyed by a blow to the head” (Smith, 2018).

By the 21st century, the zombie had become a semiotic icon, a creature to be idealised for its imperfections as well as greatly feared for them. This establishment was recognised by directors like Edgar Wright, Ruben Fleischer and Jonathan Levine (just to name a few) with their movies Shaun Of The Dead (Wright, 2004), Zombieland (Fleischer, 2009) and Warm Bodies (Levine, 2013). They had recognised the structure of a zombie flick was extremely well known and popular but needed a bit of edge to keep it popularised, so comedic elements were introduced to the world of zombie horror. This had been already been done with other horror sub-genres, but Zomcoms arguably do it the best.

Zombieland (2009)

Zombies are popular in every culture. A zombie is something that is universally recognised and appreciated. John Landis lists zombie movies from around the world, for any ‘die-hard’ fans out there – “The Spanish zombies in Rec (Jaume Balaguero, Paco Plaza, 2007), or the British zombies in Shaun Of The Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004) and 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002), or the French zombies in Paris By Night Of The Living Dead (Gregory Morin, 2009) and La Horde (Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher, 2009), the New Zealand zombies in Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (aka Braindead, 1992), and all those Italian zombies from Michele Soavi’s Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man, 1994) to Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (1979) to the Japanese (I swear this is a real name) Big Tits Zombie (Takao Nakano, 2010) to the all-American Zombie Strippers (Jay Lee, 2008). I think we can safely say that zombies are an international audience favourite”. (Landis, 2011) pg. 93 – 94.

From voodoo magic, all the way up to virus outbreaks, zombies have evolved over time, but will always be the hordes of hungry, drooling, rotting corpses we know and love. And they love us too, for you know, it’s whats on the inside that counts.

Written by Rhian Gillah

References:

Landis, J. (2011). Monsters in the Movies: 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares. Dorling Kindersley Limited.

Smith, M. (2018). The Evolution of Zombie Cinema. Available from: https:// moviesdrop.com/evolution-of-zombie-cinema/3785/

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