The movie that changed Edgar Wright’s life: “So sophisticated in what it managed to achieve”
I’d argue that Edgar Wright’s career can be divided into two categories: his British films and his Hollywood ones. While they really are two sides of the same coin, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the man behind Spaced and Shaun of the Dead is also the mastermind who created Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Baby Driver.
His American films have received widespread acclaim and fandom, with Scott Pilgrim vs the World claiming a pretty solid place within internet meme culture, but the movies he’s made on his home turf feel much more ‘him’. Loaded with dry British humour, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead were vital in establishing Wright’s status as an innovative filmmaker. His use of sharp, snappy editing really conveys the mounting tension in the plot alongside ensuing hilarity, and tracking shots capture the action without missing a beat.
These films took his love for horror and added a hearty dose of satire, both poking fun at conventions and tropes of the genre while also celebrating the legacy of classic scary movies that shaped his interest in cinema. “I’ve always been fascinated by horror films and genre films. And horror films harboured a fascination for me and always have been something I’ve wanted to watch and wanted to make. Equally, I’m very fascinated by comedy,” the director once revealed in the book The Film That Changed My Life by Robert K Elder.
While Wright’s first movie was actually a western, not a horror, his love of comedy was blindingly apparent. The fact that he called it A Fistful of Fingers—a clear riff on Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars— teased his career-long interest in blending satire with specific genres.
In this, one movie that has always been in the back of Wright’s mind while making his own features, having been inspired by it early on to find horror in comedy and vice versa, merging opposing genres. An American Werewolf in London, directed by John Landis, was a pivotal moment in the young director’s cinematic education, where a movie showed him that it could be genuinely thrilling, tense, and scary, while also being rather hilarious.
“I suppose the reason that this film changed my life is that very early on in my film-watching experiences, I saw a film that was so sophisticated in its tone and what it managed to achieve. It really changed my life. It’s informed both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz,” he noted.
He went on to explain the highlights of the film in terms of its structure, saying, “There have been moments of verbal comedy, physical comedy, and tonal comedy. And extreme violence, somehow. Something like An American Werewolf in London, the idea of having this mix of socially awkward comedy preceded by incredibly vivid Oscar-winning horror, was just astonishing, is really astonishing.”
He also mentioned the gripe people have with horror and comedy almost always losing out at the Oscars, and his surprise at the turn of events with this film: “Horror films never get considered for Academy Awards; it’s kind of incredible that An American Werewolf in London won the first-ever makeup Oscar”.
Landis’ film was a groundbreaking moment for horror, with the narrative following two American students transplanted into the Yorkshire countryside, where they take a disastrous trek across the moors one night, resulting in a werewolf attack. While it’s unlikely you’ll ever see a werewolf on the Yorkshire moors (although heaven knows what else lurks up there), the film feels wholly believable, mastering a realistic tone that feels very much buoyed by its humour.
The film doesn’t take itself too seriously, but that has the effect of somehow making it feel all the more real. Wright was amazed by its ability to strike a perfect balance between lightheartedness and fear, something he has since achieved himself. And the proof is in the pudding—what other films are played on ITV2 as much as Hot Fuzz?
