Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End, collectively dubbed the “Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy,” are among the most rewatchable comedies ever made. Their plot and character development are airtight, the jokes never get old, and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s unparalleled on-screen chemistry is always a joy to watch. One of the aspects that make these movies more rewatchable than the average comedy is the abundance of little details that Wright included in every frame.
These movies are filled with winks to familiar audiences who already know all the twists and turns. As a result, they stand up to endless repeat viewings. On the 10th, 20th, or even 100th viewing of any of these movies, a given viewer is likely to notice something they’ve never spotted before. The use of foreshadowing in Wright and Pegg’s masterfully constructed scripts is a big part of this. All three Cornetto movies overtly spoil themselves with subtle foreshadowing. But they’re not real spoilers, because they’re imperceptible on the first watch – they’re just little details you pick up on later.
In an early scene in Shaun of the Dead, between Liz breaking up with Shaun and the dead rising from their graves, Ed lays out a plan for the following day to help Shaun get over the breakup and unwittingly describes the whole plot of the movie: “We’ll have a Bloody Mary first thing… a bite at the King’s Head… couple at the Little Princess… then stagger back here… and bang, back at the bar for shots.” They kill a zombie named Mary in the morning; Shaun’s stepdad gets bitten in the head; they pick up Liz and the couple she lives with; they mimic the undead in order to get through a horde of zombies to the Winchester Pub; and there, they shoot zombies with the Winchester rifle above the bar.
Wright’s foreshadowing slips under the radar because it doesn’t draw attention to itself. A lot of movies that attempt this go out of their way to overtly telegraph it and it loses all its impact. In the Cornetto trilogy, most of the secret spoilers work on their own as jokes without the foreshadowing element. It’s already funny when an infuriated Pete is woken in the middle of the night and yells at Ed, “You wanna live like an animal? Go and live in the shed, you thick f***!” But that insult is paid off in the final scene when Shaun goes out to the shed to play video games with a zombified Ed, who’s chained up in there.
In Hot Fuzz, Nicholas Angel reveals the twist ending in the opening scene. When the Chief Inspector transfers Nicholas to a sleepy town to stop him from making the other London cops look bad, Nicholas says, “With all due respect, sir, you can’t just make people disappear,” to which he replies, “Yes, I can, I’m the Chief Inspector.” Bill Nighy’s delivery is so brilliant that it slips by as a throwaway joke and not a spoiler.
One fun way that Wright and Pegg use foreshadowing in their scripts is repeating familiar lines of dialogue with an entirely new context. Throughout Shaun of the Dead, Shaun is constantly told, “You’ve got red on you.” At first, it’s red ink from a leaky pen, but later on, it’s the spattered blood of the undead. When Shaun bumps into his old pal Yvonne, he asks, “How are you doing?” and she sarcastically replies, “Surviving.” Initially, “surviving” is an ironic metaphor for life in the nightmarish, overpopulated modern world. Later, it takes on a more literal meaning as the dead come back to life in search of living human flesh to feast on.
Sometimes, the foreshadowing is more obvious on the first viewing for comedic effect, like when Pete says he was bitten by a mugger on the way home from work. While Shaun, Ed, and Pete don’t know that being bitten spells doom in a zombie movie, the audience does. So, when Ed says, “Next time I see him, he’s dead,” the audience is already aware of the irony. The same goes for Ed’s advice to Shaun about his breakup: “It’s not the end of the world.”
Journalist Tim Messenger’s death scene in Hot Fuzz is a masterclass in foreshadowing. Tim approaches Nicholas at a church fete and tells him he’s got some information that will blow the Sandford conspiracy wide open, and waits by the church to tell him about it. While one of the cloaked killers is seen racing to the roof of the church, the tombola caller says, “Tim, your number’s up.” Simon Skinner is seen playing a game called “Splat the Rat” right before Tim is impaled (or “splatted”) by a dislodged church steeple to stop him from giving information to Nicholas.
The final entry in the Cornetto trilogy, The World’s End, took the foreshadowing to another level. Gary’s retelling of the guys’ first attempt to complete “The Golden Mile” in the opening montage mirrors their second attempt beat-for-beat. The first time they attempted the pub crawl, Oliver and Peter were knocked out of commission early. The second time, Oliver and Peter are the only two who become “blanks.” Sam meets up with them and leaves them at the same points in the crawl. The shooting star from the first night out is echoed in the explosive end of civilization on the second one.
The name of each pub foreshadows what happens there, too. The First Post is the first pub on the crawl. The Old Familiar looks exactly the same as the First Post. (Oliver comments that chain pubs are scrubbing pubs of any individuality, which foreshadows the fact that “The Network” is doing the same to the residents of Newton Haven.) The Famous Cock is the first pub where somebody recognizes Gary. The Cross Hands is where the guys fight some teenage “blanks” in the men’s room – the first time all five of them have worked together since reuniting. The Good Companions is where they pretend to be having a nice, normal night out so they don’t arouse suspicion. The Trusty Servant is where they run into their old weed dealer and try to determine if he’s been body-snatched. The Two-Headed Dog is where Gary battles robotic twins. The Mermaid is where the guys are seduced by siren-like “blanks.” The Beehive is where Mr. Shepherd explains the Network’s goals to unify humanity with a hive mind. The King’s Head is where Gary King’s mental health issues come to light. The Hole in the Wall is self-explanatory (Andy crashes “The Beast” through the wall). And the World’s End is where, well, the world ends.
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