10 Horror Movies That Embarrassed Other Movies Released At The Same Time

Sometimes in the savage world of big-business movie-making, two excellent films vie for the same spot, coming into direct competition with each other even though their directors never had this in mind. And this is precisely what happened with Shaun of the Dead and its namesake Dawn of the Dead.

Released practically on top of each other in 2004, Edgar Wright's Shaun and Zack Snyder's Dawn deal with similar subject matter in very different ways. Played for laughs, Shaun of the Dead sees its titular hero sleepwalk his way into a zombie apocalypse and put together a rag-tag team of survivors on the fly in hope of fighting off the horde and making it out alive. Played entirely seriously, Dawn of the Dead sees a group of survivors hole up in a shopping mall, fighting back their zombie attackers, dying gruesome deaths and eventually making a break for freedom.

Wright's film was designed as both a send up of and love letter to the genre, but its release date turned it into a full-body takedown, unwittingly tearing apart all the genre tropes and self-seriousness of Snyder's fantastic remake of the George Romero classic.

Distributor for both films Universal Pictures were so concerned by this they pushed back Sean's release date to autumn in the US. But on this side of the pond, the damage was already done.