I’m not a horror movie fan in general (I don’t like being scared, nothing fun about it for me) but I love Shaun of the Dead. Maybe it’s because it has a “happy” ending, or maybe just because it’s funny, or maybe because the main focus aren’t the zombies, but Shaun’s emotional arc, and the jokes of course. Whatever the reason, it’s great. When I was listening to Screen Drafts last year they were doing an episode about zombies, and author Clark Collis was on as one of the drafters. I hadn’t seen any of the movies except Shaun of the Dead, of course, but I still very much enjoyed listening to the episode. At the end, Collis plugged his new book, coming out within weeks, all about the making of the film, stuffed full of exclusive interviews from the lowest zombie extra all the way up to hours with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Boy, I clicked per-order so fast.
When the book arrived, somewhat as a surprise weeks later, I was very happy to see that the book itself was physically gorgeous, with heavy paper tipped with shiny red edges, lots of pictures, and a faux-vinyl album on the endpapers.
The book itself was pretty good, too.
Honestly, you see the cover, that’s what you’re getting. Collis is thorough, writes in clear prose, and has a knack for inserting just the right quote from the right person at the right time. You like the movie, you will like this book. And it also details the origins of the movie, and the origins of both Pegg’s and Wright’s careers. On the other end of the spectrum, it spends quite a bit of time on the impact the movie has had since 2004.
If you like behind the scenes stuff, this is definitely a book to check out, and if you like Shaun of the Dead in particular, I thought it was well worth the price of a hardcover. I am actually home sick from work today, and treated myself to a screening of Shaun of the Dead for the first time in several years as a way to work myself up to finally writing this review, and it was just as great as I remembered it being.
