Three Flavours Cornetto (2004 franchise)

Promotional image for Hot Fuzz (2007 film)....

"Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy", AKA "Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy": a series of comedy/action/horror films sharing the same creators and cast, named for a running gag in the three films involving Cornetto ice cream as a cure for hangovers:

• Shaun of the Dead (2004, parodies "zombie" movies)
• Hot Fuzz (2007, parodies buddy cop movies and Folk Horror/Gothic Horror/mystery movies)
• The World's End (2013, parodies alien invasion movies)
• ... and the similar Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018, about a boarding school of horror)

Summary

"Shaun of the Dead: In a time of crisis a hero must rise... from his sofa." Slacker Shaun decides to turn his moribund life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.

"Hot Fuzz. Big cops. Small town. Moderate violence." Exceptional London cop Nicholas Angel is involuntarily transferred to a quaint English village and paired with a witless new partner. While on the beat, Nicholas suspects that the small town harbors a darker secret and that a sinister conspiracy is afoot with the residents.

"The World's End: One night. Six friends. Twelve pubs. Total annihilation." Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from twenty years earlier unwittingly become humanity's only hope for survival.

"Slaughterhouse Rulez: Surviving school can be a bloody nightmare." An illustrious British boarding school becomes a bloody battleground when a mysterious sinkhole appears at a nearby fracking site unleashing unspeakable horror.

Details

• Release Date: 2004, 2007, 2013; 2018
• Country/Language: UK/France/USA, English
• Genres/Technical: Comedy, Drama, Action, Mystery, Horror, Science Fiction
• Setting: small-town UK and London UK, Modern
• Runtime: 1 hr 56 min
• Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman
• Director: Edgar Wright
• Writer: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg
• Producer/Production Co: Universal Pictures, StudioCanal, Working Title Films; Universal Pictures, Focus Features, Relativity Media (The World's End)
• View Trailer: (2004), (2007), (2013), (2018)
• TVTropes: (2004), (2007), (2013)
• IMDB Page: (2004), (2007), (2013), (2018)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: R (Violence, Adult Content, Profanity)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)

There is minimal "Lovecraftian" content in any of these films, beyond the fact that Hot Fuzz parodies the sort of small-town-harboring-a-sinister-secret theme characteristic of subgenres of Gothic horror, especially Lovecraft's horror fiction, and the other two films parody sci-fi/horror subjects that bear some peripheral relationship to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• (review needed)

Synopsis (SPOILERS)

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)

• Shaun of the Dead - Slacker Shaun decides to turn his moribund life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.
• Hot Fuzz - Exceptional London cop Nicholas Angel is involuntarily transferred to a quaint English village and paired with a witless new partner. While on the beat, Nicholas suspects that the small town harbors a darker secret and that a sinister conspiracy is afoot with the residents, who are actually members of a murderous cult.
• The World's End - Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from twenty years earlier unwittingly become humanity's only hope for survival, when they discover that the town's population has been replaced by alien invaders.

Notes

Comments, Trivia, Dedication

• In addition to the Cornetto ice cream gag and a recurring cast of actors playing different roles, the three films also share pubs as central settings, a running gag involving failed attempts to jump over fences, and other running gags, as well as some shared themes such as buddy/romantic/relationship comedies thinly disguised as action/horror/science-fiction films.

Associated Mythos Elements

• location: Sandford, Gloucestershire UK (Hot Fuzz); Newton Haven, Hertfordshire UK (World's End)
• cult: Neighborhood Watch Alliance (NWA), complete with black, hooded cloaks and daggers....
• race: "The Network"
• race: Zombies