For me, comedy films these days have really lost their way. Whether that’s down to actors, bad scripts or, in general, unfunniness, they just don’t do much for me. I’m a fan of the genre, don’t get me wrong. Shane Black’s buddy cop comedy of 2016, ‘The Nice Guys’  was my favourite movies of the year, and it was hilarious. Taika Waititi is also a comedy director who seems to be doing exceptionally well at the moment too, and with comedy legend Mel Brooks winning the Academy Fellowship Award at the BAFTAS in February, the comedy genre is still ever growing whilst paying homage to greats such as Brooks. Of course, its all about what you yourself find funny in these films, humour is of course subjective. But there is one director in particular, an auteur you may have heard of called Edgar Wright, who never fails to make a clever and witty comedy. He’s famous for his ‘Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy,’ you know, ‘Shaun of the Dead,’  (2004) ‘Hot Fuzz’ (2007) and ‘The Worlds End’ (2013) starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost? They’re pretty iconic comedy spoofs that take a satirical look at the zombie genre, the buddy cop/action film genre and the sci-fi/disaster film genre, respectively. He’s also responsible for ‘Scott Pilgrim vs The World’ (2010) based on the popular comic book/video game series. I’m going to pick apart these four films and discover what makes Edgar Wright such a quirky and crafty auteur in the world of the comedy film.

Its worth looking at the social connotations that Wright uses to create comedy in his films, most notably an narrative device that is used throughout his cornetto trilogy, and also can be applied to ‘Scott Pilgrim.’  The device in question is the idea of the ‘pub’ as a safe haven, a place where all problems can be avoided and also acts in a way as an idea for ‘heaven’ for the characters of these movies. If you’ve seen ‘Shaun’ you’ll know of the iconic line where Sean sets a plan for them to survive the zombie apocalypse: ‘’Take car. Go to mum's. Kill Phil - "Sorry." - grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.’’ The inclusion of the pub and drinking in these movies is a reference to ‘lad’ culture in Britain and the humour that could result from these situations, something that the ‘Hangover’ trilogy does well for American audiences in particular, in the same way that Wright does this for a British audience. However, the humour behind this stems from the idea that Shaun suggests that going for a pint at the pub will allow them to avoid the zombies and hopefully everything will be ok soon enough. They just want to have a  good time! And this is seen in ‘The Worlds End’ aswell, as Gary manipulates his friends into acting like the ‘blanks’ (the alien antagonists) so they can continue their pub crawl and not be captured by them. Its interesting, and I think everyone can find something funny about this. Its that classic ‘mum and dad’ scenario. Dad forgets to pick you up from school, and mum isn’t too happy about it until maybe the next money. So what does dad do to avoid being shouted at by the mrs? He goes to the pub, and waits for it to ‘blow over.’ Wright is very clever with this indeed, and if we’re going by the example I’ve given, men and women will find that funny for the irony. Its something so subtle you can take from the iconic line in the first film that works so well with the idea of ‘lad’ culture, and whilst its not exactly the same, its used in ‘Scott Pilgrim’ after Scott and Ramona finish their fight with Ramona’s fourth evil-ex Roxy, Scott excessively starts drinking at a bar and starts to seem not so phased with the whole ‘evil-ex’ thing. We see it similarly in ‘Hot Fuzz’ in which Nick Frost’s character Danny suggests multiple times that he and Nicholas Angel should go to the pub, as its probably the only exciting thing there is in Sandford (which later turns out to be false) but again plays with the idea of lad culture and drinking, and even though its something that Wright uses a lot, he crafts it into a unique humorous context in every film.

What Wright is probably the best at is visual comedy. Whether its the the two tracking shots that follow Shaun’s walk to and from the shops pre and post zombie apocalypse in ‘Shaun of the Dead’ or Wright’s characters making overly unnecessary exits from windows, such as in ‘Worlds’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim.’ But one noticeable visual element that Wright uses in all of his films are the dramatic action film style shots that zoom in on items as if its the generic ‘tooling up’ scenes from these types of films. Wright uses this to create comedy in his own way. He blends everyday acts with this action style zoom in all of his films, for example, when Shaun spreads jam on his toast or opens the fridge, or when Scott Pilgrim gears up to save Ramona but in the last shot the zoom stops and waits for him to tie his shoelaces. Its a really clever way to make things less boring and just, in Edgar Wright’s world, utterly ridiculous. Like the paperwork scene in ‘Hot Fuzz,’ paperwork is boring, but when combined with the over the top dramatic music and zooms, its exciting and just stupid. And that’s what makes it so funny.

Its also interesting to see how Wright subverts from genre norms with comedy, especially bearing in mind how the cornetto trilogy is a series of pastiches poking fun at different genres. The subversion comes from the idea of setting. We would expect the zombie apocalypse to be set in a massive city or in a busy shopping mall, but in ‘Shaun’ its mostly set in a pub. In ‘Hot Fuzz’ we would expect an action/buddy cop film to take place in a big crime ridden city, but no, it takes place in a quiet rural British village. The same idea of the village is used in ‘The Worlds End’ in which we would expect an alien invasion narrative to take place in a massive city like New York or Washington, but nope, Wright settles with a village. And that just works brilliantly, again its just silly and ridiculous, nothing every bad happens in a small village, an idea that Nicholas Angel holds when he is sent to Sanford and again, of course he is proved wrong, and the city council are revealed as the antagonists. You can argue that ‘The Worlds End’ is a narrative that is very similar to ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ or of course that ‘Hot Fuzz’ parodies the buddy cop formula found in ‘Bad Boys’ and ‘Point Break’ (which are both directly referenced) but thats the beauty, they are parodies. But the films are clever, they are very self-aware and Wright’s directing and writing make these parodies special. He adds his own quirks and examples of ridiculous cinematography, characters and settings in to separate them from other films, the ones they are parodying and other comedies, and make them very unique indeed.