Clawsome chatted with Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright about pop culture, plot holes and questions that make him want to hurt people.

Oh yeah, also the Hot Fuzz DVD which was released in 2007 but still a clawsome cult classic.

UPDATE: Hot Fuzz is days away from being released on Blu-ray. You KNOW Clawsome will be there.

When you think of cult TV series Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, images of Simon Pegg and the hilarious Nick Frost pop into one’s mind. However, behind these two is a driving force in co-writer and director Edgar Wright.

A tad camera-shy (see our video interview here) and deeply steeped in film geek knowledge, Edgar polished and honed his directorial style with Hot Fuzz. This interview was recorded with him in 2007 when the Hot Fuzz DVD was released.

“Imagine Miss Marple directed by Tony Scott,” said Ed, “that’s the style we were going for. We wanted to make the English copper sexy and cool.”

And indeed Hot Fuzz, particularly in the last half hour, could be confused with a mammoth-budgeted Hollywood blockbuster. “But it wasn’t!” Edgar assured us, laughing, “we did have loads of cool toys. I mean the guns were great. Simon got to jump through the air firing two guns at the same time – everyone wants to do that! Also we had an air cannon that fired a car for a stunt near the end. I just love the fact that, in this world, there exists a cannon that fires cars!”

The DVD/Blu-ray is jam packed with goodies, including commentaries with cast, crew and the Sandford Village people (Sandford being the idyllic village where the flick is set) and even the actual Sandford fuzz!

“That was great to do.” Edgar enthused. “One of them, if you watch right to the end credits, noticed his ‘special thanks’ credit is higher up than Quentin Tarantino’s. He was very happy about that.”

Possibly the funniest feature is the Plot Holes section. This is where some of the film’s more unlikely events are justified in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion.

“We thought it would be funny – especially the death of Tim Messenger.”

For those of you who haven’t seen the film, Mr. Messenger has his head crushed by a bit of broken church roof. “There are so many ways that death couldn’t have happened,” chuckled Wright, “so we have the killers abseiling down the other side of the church. It’s a big dose of ‘movie logic‘, but you sort of get swept up with it.”

We had to ask Edgar about the ill-fated Grindhouse - he directed a hilarious faux trailer in the film – and its poor reception

“I think what happened calls to attention my least favourite things: box office watching. In the States they obsess about ‘opening weekends‘. Also, maybe because of the length it didn’t cross over – not capturing the ‘dinner and a movie’ crowd. But I think the second weekend really killed it. Headlines about it being a ’flop’ and bad box office make people not want to see movies. But that’s meaningless. Look at John Carpenter’s The Thing – tanked at the box office but it’s now considered a genre classic. A masterpiece.”

Edgar’s relaxed chatty demeanour only soured slightly when we asked “What’s next?”

“Oh don’t ask me that – oh fuck!” he groaned. “Every interview ends with ‘you’ve done zombies, you’ve done cops… what’s next?’ I don’t know! [laughs] We’ll see.”

UPDATE: Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are finally getting a third part of what’s commonly known as The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy (aka Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy). You see, in Shaun and Fuzz there’s always a scene where a main character gets a Cornetto. Additionally each film is connected to a specific flavour of Cornetto:

Shaun of the Dead – was Strawberry, red

Hot Fuzz – was Classico, blue

and the third part of the trilogy The World’s End (working title) minty, green.

The use of the three colours of Cornetto is possibly a reference to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours film trilogy.

Readers’ Voice: Yeah, fucking fascinating, what’s the third film about?

Very little is known about this project other than it will be more of a sci-fi-themed end of world dealy. Will it be Mad Max-ish? Omega Man? The Day After Tomorrow? [dry heave] Regardless, Simon, Nick and Edgar are getting the band back together one more time. Cause for celebration, ja?