Never heard of the “Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy? How about the “Blood and Ice Cream” trilogy? If not, you’re likely familiar with the quirky, genre-bending British films starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and directed by Edgar Wright, rather than the Cornetto ice cream flavors that appear in each film.
Shaun of the Dead (2004) is the “rom-com-zom” that started it all. Shaun (Pegg) is dumped by his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) and berated by his father (Bill Nighy) and spends his nights in the pub with his best friend (Frost). He finally decides to get his act together, only to find himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The film both a satire of, and an homage to, zombie films, and has emerged as one of the decade’s most beloved cult hits.
Hot Fuzz (2007) finds Pegg as Nicholas Angel, a London cop who is so good he’s making the rest of the department look bad. He’s transferred to a sleepy little village and partnered with Frost, the goofy son of the police chief. Just when he thinks nothing will happen in this backwater burg, a series of “accidents” are knocking off residents one by one. This spoof of cop buddy films is action packed and hysterically funny.
The World’s End (2013), on DVD next month, is a sci-fi comedy that completes the trilogy. Pegg is Gary King, who reunites with his four best mates from high school to finish an epic pub crawl in their hometown that they failed to complete years ago. As they move from pub to pub, they find that there’s something fishy about that night years ago, and about this night as well. The World’s End is a hair darker and more serious than its predecessors, but just as beloved.
If you yearn for more, check out Spaced, the British sitcom starring Pegg and Jessica Hynes (costarring Frost and directed by Wright) as roommates in London at the turn of the millennium.
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