It has been 22 years since a zombie movie hit theaters that was so good that the director who created the modern-day zombies called it “an absolute blast.” Before 1968, zombie movies focused on Haitian folklore and had nothing really to do with the dead rising from their graves and eating brains. That all changed in 1968 when George A. Romero directed Night of the Living Dead, where he reimagined the zombies as the dead who rose from their graves to hunt down humans. As the movies began to build on Romero’s vision, these zombies turned into monsters that ate the living, which resulted in zombie comedies, dramas, thrillers, and even TV shows like The Walking Dead.
Romero was always honest about his feelings about the movies that he helped grandfather into existence. That made it high praise when Edgar Wright directed his addition to the zombie genre, releasing Shaun of the Dead on September 24, 2004, and Romero heaped praise on the movie, saying it was a blast and then going even further when he invited Wright and star Simon Pegg to join him on his next zombie movie.
From the start, it was clear that Edgar Wright was paying homage to George A. Romero with his movie titled Shaun of the Dead, after Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The storyline was completely original compared to any Romero movie, as it focused on a man living on the outskirts of London who wanted to save his girlfriend and mother when he realized the zombie apocalypse was underway. The movie did share a lot of the themes that Romero brought into his movies. Romero focused heavily on social issues in his movies, from the rare Black hero in Night of the Living Dead to the critique of capitalism in Dawn of the Dead. Wright used the idea that humans were already walking zombies because of the monotony of life. No one even realized there was a zombie apocalypse at first because it didn’t look much different than the boring, lethargic lifestyles surrounding Shaun.
However, where Wright really paid homage to Romero was with the zombies, although Wright added his masterful humor moments to the movie to help level out the horrific moments. Even with the humor, Wright took the zombies seriously. The zombie and gore effects were magnificently done, and the death scenes all hit hard, showing the true nature of the zombie apocalypse. The humor was all thanks to Nick Frost’s comic timing and Simon Pegg’s hapless everyman who just can’t seem to say or do the right thing. Comparatively, the zombie story was deadly serious.
This was Edgar Wright’s calling card, his first wide-release feature movie after his breakout TV show Spaced. The movie was a box office success, making $31.8 million on a $6 million budget. It has a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 93% audience rating. Wright won a British Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay, and the movie received three BAFTA Award nominations, including Outstanding British Film. It also impressed the one person in the world that Wright wanted to impress the most.
Wright wanted to know what the legendary director thought about the movie, so George A. Romero watched it in a Florida theater by himself. After watching Shaun of the Dead, Romero actually reached out and called Edgar Wright to give his approval. Romero said the movie was “an absolute blast” to watch. To prove how much he loved the film and appreciated the respect that Wright showed him, he made an offer to the Shaun of the Dead director. In an interview with Time Out, Wright said, “Of all the feedback we were ever going to get, what George Romero thought was the most important. Then we got the call and it was like: it’s worth all the effort now.”
Romero invited Wright and star Simon Pegg, who played Shaun, to appear in his next zombie movie. Romero was in the process of making his 2005 film, Land of the Dead, and he asked Wright and Pegg if they wanted to make cameos in the movie. Not only did they agree, but they also turned down the role that Romero offered, one where people would recognize them. Instead, Wright and Pegg asked to be zombies in the movie. As great as it was for Pegg and Wright, Romero himself said, “I was flattered.” This allowed Wright to work with the director he wanted most to pay respect to when he released Shaun of the Dead 22 years ago.
