An attempt to return to the good old days of pointless film comparison.

Do either require an introduction?

Get voting and get commenting. The fate of very little of any consequence is in your hands.

I think I'll have to watch them both again before voting.

Shaun of the Dead for me. Despite probably enjoying Hot Fuzz more on the first viewing, it doesn't stand up to repeat viewings as well as Shaun does in my opinion. Also, the dark turn in Shaun works a lot better than in Hot Fuzz and has a genuine emotional impact.

Hot Fuzz without a doubt. It is much more accomplished and rounded with perfect pastiches. Shaun was effectively ruined by the awkward changes in tone.

I'd agree that it left the rails for a while towards the end of the film, but I prefer Shaun over Hot Fuzz because the latter was half-an-hour too long and - to my mind - it just didn't know what it wanted to be.

Shaun for me, not even close. I liked Hot Fuzz plenty, and it had some brilliant moments, but I think Shaun, not Fuzz, is the more well-rounded of the two. Plus I think the first two thirds of Shaun is funnier than anything in Fuzz, despite the manifestly more dramatic final third perhaps being a little awkwardly wedged in.

Shaun manages to get laughs out of some incredibly dark scenes ("Actually, I would like to be shot", "Get fucked four-eyes") whereas the comedy in Fuzz I found to be a little (though not much) more broad. I'd class them both as comedies first and foremost, so I think whichever one is funnier should get my vote. I found Shaun to be funnier, it gets my vote and Robert est le frère de ton père.

Hot Fuzz for me. Cops over zombies any day of the week.

Shaun gets my vote. Much like some who have already posted I like Hot Fuzz but Shaun is an altogether more accomplished film and actually feels like a film that is trying to tell a story. This raises it above Hot Fuzz since that is a film that is content to merely be a pastiche, which is perfectly fine, but when I watch Shaun I feel a degree of involvement with the characters that is completely absent from Hot Fuzz.

Shaun for me, for the direct opposite reason to Starscream.

Love them both but Shaun is tighter and gets my vote.

I'm not surprised that Shaun is edging the voting, but I am surprised that people think it's a better film. Hot Fuzz is extremely tight and well plotted, like the classic murder mysteries it homages. Not very much happens in SOTD in comparison.

As for the broader comedy, I'd agree, but the laughs in SOTD are cruel and less sophisticated; the reliance on bad language is cheap for Pegg.

I agree, Shaun was my first love, but these days I find it doesn't bear repeated viewing quite so well as Hot Fuzz, which, whilst it is a bit overlong, has more going for it in terms of plot.

Hot Fuzz for me, though I love them both anyway. I just felt that I enjoyed Hot Fuzz that tiny bit more.

Found my review from '07:



It's still the only time I've seen it, although I do have a copy of the DVD in my "to watch" pile. Perhaps a second viewing is in order.

I bet a second viewing would whip by.

You could say the same about genre with SOTD... A romzomcom? That's a mish-mash of genres, self-consciously so. Hot Fuzz is a cop film with a murder mystery plot, surely a pedigree?

when it comes down to it, neither of them are a patch on 'spaced'. sure, they have their moments, but they're both just okay...

for me, as well as suffering from being self-aware, through successful pastiche, they suffer from the same problems that their references do. i enjoyed shaun more, probably just because it came first and was a little lighter on the stylisation, than 'fuzz', which had become annoying by the time i finally gave it a second viewing. and, if i'm moaning, which i am, i'm a little disappointed that their next project looks to be more of the same...

'Shaun'. My brain doesn't work enough at this moment to think about why, but I've watched it a million more times than 'Fuzz'.

With SotD, for a large part, it was just funny things happening during a zombie attack. To my mind, it falls flat on its arse when they get to the pub and Shaun has to deal with his Mum. The shift in tone just doesn't gel very well with the other, more slap-stick elements of the film, but I can live with it because before and after that it is still very enjoyable. It's certainly not my favourite film ever, but it is one I can, and have, watched again.

With Hot Fuzz, at this distance, I don't really know what it was about the film that didn't work for me. There were some good jokes etc, but I didn't understand why a film that seemed to be a parody needed to go to great lengths to explain the references. Thinking back, it is possible that I may have been biased against it before I saw it because in the interviews I saw with Simon, Edgar and Nick, in the run up to the films release, they were being incredibly smug and self congratulatory about how clever they had been. So perhaps I didn't go in the right frame of mind, perhaps it was just something completely different to what I had expected, but I do know that at the time I just didn't think it was a particularly great film.

As I say, I should probably watch it again!



What he said!

Hot Fuzz does improve with rewatches (for me anyway).

Shaun for me. Hot Fuzz is well plotted and a lot of fun, but I just have more affection for Shaun (even though I've always thought that Liz was a weak character).

Shaun, easily, though I don't quite see where the "rom" in "romzomcom" comes from... It's a delightful comedy with mostly-realistic (or at least identifiable), sympathetic characters, good pacing, and plenty of clever-yet-subtle references to more orthodox, classic horror flicks.

Fuzz, on the other hand, while still rather fun, is so knowingly parodic of its inspirations (and, just in case you didn't get it, helpfully name-checks them every other scene) that it comes off decidedly less than adroit. In its attempts to be comprehensive, it gets bogged down by the weight of decades' worth of buddy-cop film tropes. And, of course, right when it gets moving toward the climax, the wheels get thrown off by the hyperkinetic quick-cut editing that not one-ups, or two-ups, but at least three-ups Michael Bay. That said, it's got a few good laughs, a great cast (especially Tim Dalton at his scenery-chewing best), and is quite well-shot. But it doesn't have the earnest, more straightforward charm of Shaun. If Fuzz had just dialed things down a bit, I probably would have enjoyed it more.

Hot Fuzz for me.

I loved SOTD, but for me Hot Fuzz felt more together, and it was much more of a cinematic experience, it really built up with each death, and up to the revelation, through to the massive gunfight. Awesome.

Shaun gets my vote although i'd agree with what others have said about neither quite living up to Spaced but i think that has more to do with affectionate memories of sitting getting stoned with some of my oldest friends so i remember it through hash tinted spectacles so to speak.

Shaun also taps into good memories of watching cheesy old horror movies when much younger and more easily impressed like Romero's zombie films and the living dead series,American werewolf also has that same effect on me 'Cosy catasrophe' is a term that gets used a lot online to describe that feeling.

Hot Fuzz is still a very enjoyable movie but to me it seems to land smack bang in the middle of American action cop movie and Ealing murder mystery thriller which was probably the intention to mix up the genre's but it doesnt work as well as it should for me personally.

Shaun get's my vote.
Though I appreciate that Fuzz is a more well made film (with cleverer writing), I think it comes down to me preferring zombie films over action films. ...Also, I think we can all agree that Shaun is more original.

Actually I would say Shaun has a more standard zombie formula than Hot Fuzz has a standard action film formula.

Boil it down to its basic plot and Shaun is zombie outbreak results in group of people finding a place of safety and then defend that place. Pretty much the same as most other zombie films.

I prefer Hot Fuzz. After first viewing I would've said Shaun, but I've watched it a dozen times since them and the humour is much more subtle.

Plus, it has Timothy Dalton in it.

It does. But no one had ever used the standard zombie formula in a comedy film. Whereas there have been plenty of action comedies before Hot fuzz... many of which have cops as the lead.

The Return of the Living Dead?

Return Of The Living Dead (and sequels), Braindead, Wild Zero, Bio-Zombie...

OK. But isn't Return of the living dead more of a farce... likewise Braindead (which isn't really your standard zombie formula)
...I don't think I've seen the other 2.

It's got to be Shaun, but it's a pretty close call.