The World’s end is a film directed by Edgard Wright and aired in 2013. The genre of the work was initially claimed to be a science fiction comedy, based around the premise of five friends participating in a pub crawl, during which an alien invasion occurs in their home city. The movie features an incredible mix of formulas and genres alongside the baseline story. Some of these genres include crime thriller and horror, the sources of which come from the aliens who seek to reform the Earth and its population, seeing the 5 friends as the perfect examples of irresponsible failures that make their own and everyone else’s lives worse.
The choice of characters is what makes them easily fit into any of the genres that the film keeps switching to, as they are real people with real problems, which makes the audience easily connect with them. The overarching story, be it the funny, mysterious, or terrifying aspects, allow the viewers to experience the same emotions through those characters. The main point of the choices of genres is to make the 5 friends confront the issues that they have in a metaphoric sort of way, taking responsibility for their decisions, their lives, and the imperfections of humanity as a whole.
Wright is a filmmaker who infuses his works with all sorts of details and patterns built from elements of style. As I watched The World’s End, I noticed a repetitive element of the setting in the pub scenes. Since the film featured 12 different pubs, it was curious to see that every one of them featured identical hand-written chalk signs on the walls and on the menu placard in front of the establishment. The purposes of such decorations are a few. First, they firmly tie the event and the city to British territory, by featuring familiar signs and elements present in many pubs. Second, the sameness of pub settings hint to the audience that the pub in itself is not important compared to the events happening there.