The Beef Between 28 Days Later & Shaun Of The Dead

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Edgar Wright even admitted that was our little jibe at 28 Days Later. #shorts #shaunofthedead #28dayslater #zombie #edgarwright #comedymovies #youtubeshorts

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00:00Remember the beef between 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead?

00:03Well, we do.

00:04We finally got a belated sequel to 28 Days Later,

00:07the 2002 horror hit that, in retrospect,

00:09looks like it was shot with the same camcorder used to document your uncle's wedding,

00:12which was apparently a choice made by the filmmakers to make the movie seem more gritty.

00:16And it's no surprise that 28 Years Later is being made

00:18since the original film became so beloved, despite its frame rate.

00:22But two decades ago, Danny Boyle's acclaimed horror thriller,

00:25pseudo-zombie movie took some heat from the young British whippersnappers

00:28who made the parody, Shaun of the Dead.

00:30Even though its title more specifically calls out Dawn of the Dead,

00:33the ending of Shaun of the Dead specifically mocks 28 Days Later.

00:37As you may recall, the humanoid creatures of Boyle's film

00:39were the victims of a contagion known as the Rage Virus,

00:42presumably because the tweaked-out zombie sprinter virus

00:45would have been a little too on the nose.

00:47In the final moments of Edgar Wright's zombie comedy,

00:49a TV news anchor states that all reports that Z-Day was caused by rage-infected monkeys

00:54have now been dismissed as bull****.

00:56Edgar Wright even admitted later,

00:57that was our little jibe at 28 Days Later,

01:00revealing that it was actually his voice delivering the line.

01:03The bitterness toward 28 Days Later seemed to be less about the movie itself

01:06and more the way the filmmakers talked about it in the press.

01:10At the time, Edgar Wright told Film Freak Central,

01:12my beef with 28 Days Later is that Danny Boyle really tried to take the air out of the genre.

01:18He said he didn't like them, didn't respect them or something,

01:20and insisted on calling his film a thriller or something like that,

01:23and I didn't like that.

01:24It's true that the filmmakers did downplay the zombie-like elements of 28 Days Later,

01:29since the apocalyptic monsters were arguably just rage-infected humans

01:33with the ability to run like the wind.

01:34In 2003, Danny Boyle said,

01:37More recently, though, the film's screenwriter, Alex Garland,

01:49attempted to clear up this controversy once and for all.

01:52He said,

01:52I'm aware for years and years that there's been debates about that

01:55over whether or not it's a zombie movie.

01:58It's a zombie movie.

01:59Whatever the technical discrepancies may or may not exist,

02:01they're pretty much zombies.

02:02The folks behind Shaun of the Dead had another reason to be annoyed at 28 Days Later.

02:06As Simon Pegg had noted when he and Wright began writing their film,

02:09they thought that they were resurrecting a dead genre and would be ahead of the curve.

02:13But then they found out about Boyle's project

02:15when they were in the middle of writing the Shaun script.

02:18Edgar Wright said,

02:19I was so mad, I was absolutely livid.

02:21Because I was like, no, we're doing a zombie film.

02:24Although in hindsight, he now believes that the popularity of 28 Days Later

02:27may have actually been a blessing.

02:29And as he once proudly pointed out,

02:31Shaun of the Dead ended up outgrossing 28 Days Later in the UK.

02:34Just don't hold your breath for a sequel.

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