'They're not evil, they're just hungry'

THE makers of new British comedy horror Shaun Of The Dead spent anxious hours waiting to find out if the master of zombie movies approved.

As the title suggests, the film was inspired by George Romero's trilogy Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead and Day Of the Dead. So Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright wanted to discover what he thought of their effort following a screening in the US.

"We called up this hero of ours, the man who invented the modern zombie movie, and spoke to him - and he really liked the film. It was a joy to hear him talking about how much he enjoyed our film," says co-writer and star Pegg, best known for C4's comedy show Spaced.

Co-writer and director Wright says waiting for Romero's verdict was nerve-racking. "Him liking it was the icing on the cake."

The idea for the film came out of a short zombie sketch in an early episode of Spaced. The story has Shaun and pub-loving best friend Pete (Nick Frost) fighting a zombie invasion in London. The cast also includes Dylan Moran from Black Books, Lucy Davis from The Office, Penelope Wilton and Bill Nighy.

Part of the fun arises from the way city folk are blissfully unaware of the flesh-crazed monsters in their midst. As outsiders raised away from the capital, both Pegg and Wright feel they were in a good position to comment on city living.

"It's afforded us a little objectivity and made it easier to comment on what it's like to live in a city. Much of the film is about the way city people conduct their lives and ignore each other," says Pegg. "You can walk past somebody who's dying in the street, as we often do in London, and just step over them."

Wright agrees, believing that a lot of people walk around in a little bubble of their own problems and don't see the wider things going on. "So having Shaun do that with the zombie apocalypse was the end of that joke really. He can walk around on a Sunday morning with a hangover and not spot the living dead," he says.

Shooting the zombie scenes with hundreds of living dead roaming the streets of north London was interesting. "It was a wonderful thing to see the streets awash in blood, not least because half the residents joined in," says Pegg.

"They were queuing up to be made up as background zombies. I had to ask Edgar to call 'cut' on the first take as they all came rushing towards me because it just freaked me out. Having always been a big fan of zombie films, and been slightly unnerved by them and had dreams about them, to see 100 people coming at you, covered in blood and with contact lenses and going 'urrr', was extremely disconcerting. I had to go, 'stop it, I don't like it' before we did it again."

As the director, Wright had his work cut out controlling the zombies. "It's weird how people can be quite self-conscious acting one on one. When you get 30 people together, this mob mentality starts.

"I got all the zombies together, about 100 of them, to record sound effects of them all moaning. I said, 'attack me, attack me'. I had the microphone and one of them bit me on the leg. I thought, 'that's not even in the film, what are you doing?'."

Shaun Of The Dead arrives in the middle of a zombie film revival, after Brit horror movie 28 Days Later and the remake of Romero's Dawn Of The Dead. For Pegg, the fascination has always been with the zombies' slow, shambolic movement, without motive or moral rage or agenda. "They're just us. There's something inexorable about them. They are death. They will get you in the end. They don't mean harm - they're just doing their thing," he explains.

"They're not evil, they're just hungry," adds Wright.

Shaun Of The Dead (18) opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Published: 08/04/2004