Invasion of the Genre Snatchers

IT'S QUITE EARLY in the morning for some man-love," says Edgar Wright, "but I'm up for it." This is in response to my noting that he is a very handsome man-which really wasn't what I expected from the director/co-scripter of Shaun of the Dead. This fine zombie film is from a veteran tv ensemble of young Brits, of whom Wright is the only person who never appears on camera. So it's some surprise that Wright turns out to be the only one in the bunch who's movie-star handsome.

I was really expecting a 300-lb. beardo. That's usually the type who'd know enough about zombie films to make a modern classic that skips the clichés.

"Actually," notes Wright, "I often do have a beard."

At the moment, Wright's a little jetlagged from a heavy schedule of promoting Shaun. "They keep putting us in these pub settings," he notes, looking around at P.J. Clark's. Wright will soon be tablehopping amongst a slew of writers, and the setting is meant to evoke the place where Shaun's titular hero wastes his life-before finally trying to defend it before an onslaught of undead flesh-eaters.

Traditionally, hot horror films from the festival circuit are a massive disappointment. The types of critics who show up at screenings aren't the kind of veteran gorehounds who'd recognize clichés. Shaun isn't some overhyped retread like Cabin Fever, though. Instead, it's a zombie film made by people who can effectively flip the entire genre.

The movie would be creative enough just to have Shaun mature amongst the assorted chomping. Shaun also takes the best 10 percent of most zombie movies and turns it into 90 percent of a feature. Specifically, Shaun dwells on the creepy dread as isolated incidents give in to the full-scale chaos of a zombie uprising. This allows the film to also develop as a touching and comic tale of an over-age adolescent. He has to grow up quick to save both his relationship and the lives of his friends.

Wright explains that the device doesn't just stem from a zombie fixation: "A lot of our inspiration came more from siege films-Assault on Precinct 13, Straw Dogs, the umpteenth remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Donald Sutherland. That's how we became so interested in exploring the 'before' for a lot longer than usual. We start with a romantic comedy, and then we give it a lethal injection."

Shaun also provides plenty of genuine shocks-mainly by refusing to become just another indie with predictable politics. After all, the vast majority of zombie films are inherently right-wing: There's no better case for having guns in the house.

To his credit, Wright doesn't distance himself from that theory. "George Romero," he notes, "is probably famously left-wing, and his films are often an attack on consumerist America-certainly with Dawn of the Dead and the attack on the mall. But you're right about having a gun in the house. In the UK, we don't have that much access to guns, and most of our experience of guns is through watching American films and playing video games. Shaun is an expert game player, but once he gets a rifle, his aim is absolutely appalling. So you can say that we're trying to show how badly the Brits might deal with an apocalyptic crisis."

Shaun also dares to be sympathetic to characters that most hipster horror films would gleefully dismiss as zombie fodder. Shaun's determination to survive the zombies has less to do with bravery than a need to impress his girlfriend and spite his stepfather. The character of Shaun's stepdad would usually be a Dean Wormer type whose demise is celebrated. Instead, Wright helms a film that's uniquely sympathetic to a stodgy old character.

"The idea with the stepfather," Wright explains, "is that Shaun presents Philip as a monster, and when you meet him, it turns out that Shaun's beef with Philip is actually very petty. Then Philip gets his own redemption. We're trying to flip it around as many times as possible."

In that same spirit, the script refuses to condemn Shaun's old friend Yvonne. She's originally presented as a cheery achiever who's oblivious to reminding Shaun that his own life is moribund. Again, this would usually have her marked for humiliation. Shaun chooses to celebrate Yvonne as a good role model.

As Wright explains, "We liked the idea that if Shaun was the everyman, then other characters were ghosts of his childhood, or of his potential. Yvonne represents the old friend whose life is completely sorted. She's doing well and buying a house, and when you see her later during the zombie crisis, she's got it figured out. Her gang is pretty much on the money, while Shaun's gang has just lost all of their weapons."

The cast of Shaun-and Wright-originally worked together on the BBC series Spaced, which was a typical tale of errant twentysomethings. Wright had already built a reputation for maturing characters, as seen when I ask if he's noticed the similarities between Shaun and the recent release Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle.

"At one point," he replies, "they were asking me if I wanted to direct that one! The producer was a fan of Spaced, and you can see the similarities-although I say that without having seen Harold & Kumar."

Wright's certainly seen plenty of zombie films, though. Shaun is packed full of fun references, including a phone call to Fulci's Restaurant. The reference to prolific horror director Lucio Fulci also acknowledges Shaun's role as the latest in a line of unofficial sequels to George Romero's Living Dead films. Unlike 28 Days Later and the recent Dawn of the Dead remake, Shaun makes a commitment to the traditional shuffling zombie.

"When you have a film with fast zombies," he explains, "you inadvertently create a film with a zombie master race. They always seem to be six-two and in excellent shape. That kind of cancels out any frail zombies, fat zombies, kid zombies. We have a zombie in a wheelchair. The slow-moving zombie is a classic villain. The Dawn of the Dead remake had some good parts, but our joke was that everything was so fast and jittery that it should've been called 28 Red Bulls Later."

Wright also insists on being properly deferential to the master. The Shaun advertising campaign comes with an endorsement from Romero, and Wright's happy to give credit to the man who created the universe: "Shaun was always meant to be a companion film. It exists solely in George Romero's universe. We're not the big story. Romero made Hamlet. We've made Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead."o