Edgar Wright’s hunt for his favourite horror movie: “I was left stumped for a long time”
If you’re British, chances are you’ve seen a few Edgar Wright movies. While American audiences typically associate him with Scott Pilgrim Vs the World or Baby Driver, for British viewers, it’s always Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead. These comedic horror films are beloved parts of the country’s culture; most of us can quote the films, having spent many Sunday evenings watching them on ITV2.
These movies, part of the Cornetto Trilogy (which ended with The World’s End), helped to put Wright on the map as a clever filmmaker. They demonstrated his signature style, such as swift editing and an emphasis on sound, which he had honed while working on the television series Spaced. Using a cast of familiar British actors, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the lead, these films were witty, fast-paced, and full of twists and turns guaranteed to keep the most impatient movie-goers gripped to the screen.
Wright’s work often pays homage to the films he grew up watching, and in the case of Shaun of the Dead, the filmmaker looks to zombie films like Dawn of the Dead (of course) and Braindead. Horror is a genre he has found himself returning to, as demonstrated by his most recent film, Last Night in Soho. The filmmaker clearly loves a good scary movie, citing over 100 as his favourites.
However, there is one horror movie he now loves that it took him years to discover – despite hearing all about its brilliance. Eyes Without A Face, a French classic directed by Georges Franju, was a movie of much mystery to a young Wright. Talking to Criterion, he explained, “I became obsessed with horror at a very early age. Knowing this, my dad would often recall the greatest horror film he ever saw. It was black and white, it was French, and it was, in his words, ‘really, really gory.’”
“He would tell me it was about a mad surgeon who tries to restore the face of his daughter, disfigured in a car accident, by mutilating young women and stealing their fair skin. And he would go on and on about how great it was, how scary it was, and how I would simply have to see it,” he continued. There was just one major catch. “He could not recall the name of the film.” In a desperate quest to see this elusive film, Wright “tried to cross-reference with horror guidebooks in the library, but without the invention of the Internet and plot keywords, I was left stumped for a long time.”
Eventually, Wright found the film, much to his delight. “Years later, I saw Eyes Without a Face and called my dad immediately. I told him the crucial fact he’d been missing, the actual name of the greatest horror film he had ever seen. I then agreed with him that, yes, it was a quite extraordinary film.”
The film is an incredible tale of technological fear, male abuse of power, female liberation, and the patriarchal role of the father. It’s an early example of the body horror genre and features one of the most iconic masks in horror history. Since its release in 1960, the film has inspired everyone from John Carpenter to Leos Carax—even Billy Idol wrote his song of the same name because of the haunting movie.
