You've Got Red on You: How Shaun of the Dead Was Brought to Life

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Romero was a hugely influential figure in the history of horror. Together with a small group of Pittsburgh-based collaborators, the filmmaker had created the modern zombie genre with his low-budget 1968 directorial debut Night of the Living Dead. Previously, movie zombies had been depicted as the subservient tools of evildoers, an idea based on Haitian folklore. Romero’s zombies were a much more alarming species: revived corpses hell-bent on devouring the flesh of the film’s characters, who seek refuge in a remote farmhouse. Once bitten, the ghouls’ victims themselves transform into the undead and go hunting for people to eat. Though slow-moving, Romero’s zombies can only be stopped when they are shot in the head or receive some other significant brain trauma. One of the best [pop culture books this holiday season] is You’ve Got Red on You, Clark Collis’ breezy-yet-thorough look at 2004’s horror-comedy Shaun of the Dead…it instantly takes its place in the upper echelon of making-of books."— Josh Sewell, Times-Georgian The pair regarded Shaun of the Dead not as a parody of Romero’s films but as a love letter to them, with the humour coming from the collision of this apocalyptic scenario with humdrum London life. “I have, for many years, reiterated the fact that every zombie film, they’ve all stolen from George Romero,” says Pegg. “The cannibalistic viral zombie was entirely his idea, which was so brilliant and scary, and the most contemporary classic monster. They stand alongside vampires and werewolves, but those things have been around for hundreds of years. George came up with this in 1968.”

Simon Pegg paced around the kitchen of his home in the north London neighbourhood of Crouch End, waiting for the phone to ring. It was the evening of 26 March 2004, and the 34-year-old stand-up comedian and TV actor had just entered a new phase of his career – or hoped to have done so – portraying the title role in the low-budget horror-comedy film Shaun of the Dead. So many relationships grow and expand over the course of Collis' book that readers will find themselves falling in love with Shaun of the Dead– to say nothing of Wright, Pegg, and Frost – all over again, twenty years on. 4/4 stars."— Starburst

You've Got Red On You details the previously untold story of 2004's Shaun Of The Dead, the hilarious, terrifying horror-comedy whose fan base continues to grow and grow. After consulting dozens of the people involved in the creation of the film, author Clark Collis reveals how a group of friends overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to make a movie that would take bites out of both the UK and the US box office before ascending to the status of bona fide comedy classic. Shaun of the Dead is one of the most widely-discussed horror movies of the 2000s. Released on the heels of Wright’s latest film, Last Night in Soho, You’ve Got Red on You is the definitive account of how Shaun of the Dead came to be, featuring new interviews from the core creative trio, as well other key members of the cast and crew. Take this book with you the next time you book a table 'at the place that does all the fish.'"— Yahoo (the "It List") Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg took aim at the zombifying nature of modern life in their Shaun of the Dead script

The movie’s executive producer Jim Wilson arranged for American horror director George A. Romero to watch the film, in the hope that he would give it a buzz-generating quote. “This all came from Edgar,” says Wilson. “He was like, ‘I want George Romero to see it.’” Wilson knew an agent in Los Angeles named Frank Wuliger who worked at The Gersh Agency, which represented Romero. With Wuliger’s assistance, the executive producer “eventually got a print to somewhere where George Romero could see it.” An exemplary movie retrospective, one which combines an astonishing amount of research with a real flair for storytelling. 5/5 stars."— SFX Entertainment Weeklysenior writer Collis’ debut nonfiction work tells the story of how a much-beloved zombie movie made its way to the big screen. The director was on vacation in Florida, and had watched Shaun of the Dead at 10 a.m. Eastern time at the Island Cinema in the small beach town of Sanibel. Now, Pegg was waiting in his north London home for Romero to call and give his verdict. “I was in the kitchen in my house in Crouch End, the first house I’d bought with my then-girlfriend, now wife,” says Pegg. “I was pacing up and down like I was expecting test results.”

Clark Collis - You've Got Red On You: How Shaun Of The Dead Was Brought To Life

Shaun of the Dead is one of my favorite films and I thought I knew everything there was to know about it,” says author Collis. “I couldn’t have been more wrong. You’ve Got Red on You is full of never-before-heard tales of behind-the-scenes struggles, battles, and near-disasters. But it’s also the story of how a bunch of mates made their dream movie about people fighting zombies in a London pub and discovered that dream was embraced by audiences all around the world. I hope people have as much of a blast reading it as I did writing it.” If you’re a fan of Shaun of the Dead or a filmmaker influenced by the films of Wright this is essential reading. It is so good we read it twice before this review."— Screen Anarchy Exhaustively researched and brimming with funny, fascinating stories I didn't know, this book is must read, not just for hardcore fans, but for anyone who's interested in the creative process."— author Melissa Maerz ( Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused) The intricately rendered and definitive story behind the creation of Edgar Wright’s cinematic rom-zom-com tour-de-gore’s that is Shaun of the Dead, recounted with affection by the one and only Clark Collis."— The Nun director Corin Hardy You’ve Got Red on You details the previously untold story of 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, the hilarious, terrifying horror-comedy whose fan base continues to grow and grow. After speaking with dozens of people involved in the creation of the film, author Clark Collis reveals how a group of friends overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to make a movie that would take bites out of both the UK and the US box office before ascending to the status of bona fide comedy classic.

Rejoice Shaun of the Dead and film fans! You've Got Red on You is an in-depth, thoroughly enjoyable, and inspiring story of the making of the classic film. Collis expertly weaves interviews from cast and crew with other first hand accounts, starting before line one of the screenplay was written. I inhaled this book with a smile on my face. Now let's head down to the Winchester for a pint."— author Paul Tremblay ( A Head Full of Ghosts / The Cabin at the End of the World) I was a huge fan of Shaun of the Dead. It was my favourite movie of that year. Their jokes were like perfectly placed time bombs.”— Quentin Tarantino Eventually, producer Nira Park secured the film’s budget from WT2, a subsidiary of the production company Working Title. Wright shot Shaun of the Dead in the summer of 2003 on location in London and at the capital’s famed Ealing Studios. Smooth Operator” singer Sade Adu signed off on her band’s 1984 hit album Diamond Life being one of the albums Shaun and Ed throw at a pair of zombies which appear in their garden. Wright remembers, “It’s a tough thing to get someone on board [by] saying, ‘We want to trash your album!’…Sade, who I’ve never met, signed her release and was down for it. To me, she’s the coolest person ever. It’s like, you don’t know us from Adam, we actually break your record in the shot, and you let us clear your likeness. That’s amazing.” Some of the unpaid extras who were playing the film’s ravenous undead became hungry for each other during the weeks spent shooting the scenes set at The Winchester Tavern.” There were zombies getting off with each other,” says producer Nira Park. “There were loads of zombie relationships. Two zombies got together on the pool table.”

Sade did the filmmakers a big favor

We didn’t ever really want to parody zombie movies. We wanted to make a zombie movie.”— actor Simon Pegg Pegg had co-written Shaun of the Dead with the film’s director, Edgar Wright. The pair had previously collaborated on the TV sitcom Spaced, which starred Pegg and Jessica Hynes as two impoverished acquaintances who pretend to be a couple so they can rent a flat. Spaced rapidly developed a cult following, but the show left screens after just two seven-episode seasons, partly so that Pegg and Wright could concentrate on developing Shaun of the Dead. There were zombies getting off with each other. There were loads of zombie relationships. Two zombies got together on the pool table."— producer Nira Park I heard it was a romantic-comedy with zombies, and I was like, well, that sounds sh*t.”— actor Rafe Spall